


Λ lambda

by deltachye



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Comedy, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Reader-Insert, Secret Crush, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, and reader is age of maj so let me live, but this is fanfic, teacher!shiro, uhh so yeah screwing ur teach is a bad thing irl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13898820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [college professor!shiro x student!reader]Everybody’s got a crush on their hot teacher. You just didn’t think it’d be reciprocated—and suddenly, Astrophysics 1101 with Mr. Shirogane got a lot more complicated than it already was.





	1. 1. Dick On the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> legalities: prolly don't think abt fucking ur teacher or authority irl; it is power imbalance, an age gap that can be taken advantage of, people get sued, lives are ruined, it's inappropriate.  
> that said this is the world of ~ fanfiction ~ and i can do what i want including a depiction of shiro as the hotass nerdy teacher we all thirsted after in one point of our lives so please and thank you enjoy the show

the cosmological constant (Λ): einstein’s greatest blunder was declaring  **lambda**  to be his biggest blunder.

* * *

 

"Bitch…" Lance shook his head remorsefully, mouth half-open with a combination of disbelief and pity. "You _like_ him."

"What-no! How could-the audacity-I can't believe that you'd say that. You, to my face. That's horrible of you!"

You were fully aware of the fact that your spluttering made you sound like even more of an idiot, and shut your mouth before you could add to the mounds of evidence against your cause. Red-faced, you desperately tried to swat the smirk off of Lance McClain's face. He easily held you away with his longer-than-life arms, snickering to himself like a cat that'd just finished pushing a vase full of grandma's ashes to the floor.

"Hey, it's okay, [Name]! I can't blame you. He's fucking _tremendo mangón. Alabao_ ; if you weren't attracted to him, you're probably blind. He's a goddamn human specimen. Have you seen his shoulder to waist ratio? Boy's a ten-course meal with dessert on the house." He sighed dreamily, growing distracted enough for you to recover some semblance of dignity.

"Hear you there," you muttered sullenly, fanning the heat off of your itchy neck. "He could probably bench press the crushing weight of my failing GPA and then hop up and walk the runway at New York Fashion Week. It must be hard being so hot."

"But isn't this cute?" Lance continued to gush, always loving to snatch up little tidbits of gossip for his collection of receipts. "Little [Name]-college freshie who's never had a boyfriend-has a _crush_. On him, of all people?" The shit-eating grin was back on Lance's lips as he leant forwards, eyes slanted with mischief. "Naughty girl."

You regretted talking to him at all and withdrew, scowling as you pulled out your phone. You weren't looking at anything in particular but drew up Instagram or something else stupid to try to ignore him. Unfortunately, the distraction didn't help you much and your eyes immediately darted back to the Cuban-American boy. He wiggled his eyebrows at you relentlessly, pushing you to say something first.

"Shut up!" you snapped, caving into his wordless solicitation. "I don't like him in _that_ way or anything. He's just physically attractive, okay? That's all. Like you said, anybody would think he was good-looking."

"Are you sure? 'Cause it sounds to me like you're always _dying_ for an excuse to talk about him."

"So? I see him every day; it makes sense for me to mention him a lot. Hey-you talk about that cute guy in your Stats class every day! _You're_ the one with nothing but dick on your mind."

"Hey, there's a difference between dick and heart. Sounds to me like you're actually hopelessly in love." He put a hand on your shoulder, his highly malleable, slightly manipulative features morphing into something that was starting to resemble heartbroken pity. "There, there. Maybe if you'd listen to me and follow the dick instead of your feelings, you wouldn't end up so butthurt all the time."

You pushed him off of you as hard as you could, and he merely laughed in return. Despite your grouchiness, you weren't actually mad at him. Lance was your best and closest friend at Voltron State University. You'd met him as the overly gay tour guide at your orientation, and he'd gotten attached to your moody demeanour, taking you in under his wing. He was only a sophomore but acted like he ran the place, and that charismatic confidence attracted you. You had other friends, sure, but Lance was so openly _himself_ that you felt the most comfortable around him. Without his friendship, you'd probably be hopelessly lost on campus or eating lunch alone in a washroom stall.

"Maybe I do like him a bit," you finally admitted. Quickly, you continued before he could interject delightedly. " _But_ , I'll get over it soon enough. It's just a harmless crush, okay? Whatever. So shut up about it!"

"Oh, yeah? Mhm, okay. Tell me how that goes. But you don't need to beat yourself up so much about it anyways. _'It's just a harmless crush.'_ "

The mocking of your voice wasn't lost on you and you tried to swat at him, missing like Bobo the goddamn fool. He swung his legs over the bench he was straddling and stretched, checking the time on his phone. His eyes flashed and he straightened up. "Oops, yikes. Gotta get going if I want to secure my spot next to Hot Boy. I think I'm actually making a breakthrough with him! Finally." He rolled his deep blue eyes. "His gay ass is fine as hell, but the poor baby is so dumb."

"Which _one_?" you asked wryly. It was hard to keep track of his affairs and you didn't bother trying at this point.

" _Calc_ boy. But I saw Poli Sci girl yesterday, and she gave me her number. Looks like I'm fully booked for the weekend." He slung his stylish Michael Kors bag over his shoulder with a dramatic sigh. You motioned to do the same. Even though the next block wasn't due for another fifteen minutes, you wanted to get to class early to talk to… well, _him_. You didn't mention this to Lance and waved, biting down the blush that rose just from the thought.

"See you later, Lance."

"Hey. [Name]. Maybe if you win the guy over with your sex appeal, you can actually get an A in his class." The connotative wink wasn't lost on you and nerves roiled in your gut. He was quick to avoid your horrified punch and laughed as he left.

Alone, you were left with your own cesspool of guilt to wade through. You weren't like Lance, who could pick up or drop a relationship just like that. You were hardly registering on the scale of girlfriend material, and Lance would never stop teasing you over the fact that you were still a boyfriend virgin. As if being a virgin wasn't bad enough-you hadn't even had your first _kiss_ yet. There was an accidental face smash in grade school during a rowdy game of ultimate frisbee, but that doesn't count. Your high school years were full of… nothing. Jack shit. The 'best years of your life' had been pretty pathetic and full of frantic extracurriculars and studying in order to land yourself at a good university. Now that you were here, it felt like all of that work had been for nothing as your GPA plummeted into the ground. It was like you'd wasted your time in high school, and you hoped that the rest of your life wouldn't reflect that experience.

Lance was right all along, though. You wouldn't shut up about him. You talked about him every chance you got, and even opened up opportunities for yourself just to mention something about him. In class, you couldn't keep your eyes off of him, no matter how hard you tried to focus on your notes or the window or the hole in your desk. But you weren't stupid. You knew that it wasn't right, and that starting up anything with him would end you both in deep shit. That was in the hypothetical that you even could, with your lacking appearance and personality. Besides, he had something like a decade on your fetus ass, and he was your Astrophysics 1101 teacher, Professor Shirogane.

But God, was he something else.


	2. 2. Get in Loser We're Going on an Existential Crisis

When Dr. Matthew Holt screeched up to Shiro's place in the shittiest looking Dodge caravan he had ever laid eyes upon, Shiro was almost unsure if he should even get in.

"Don't mind Katie in the back!" Matt shouted over the blaring music that Shiro couldn't even recognize with its suffocating boosted bass. He waved Shiro inside encouragingly. "Pops told me to take her to school and it's on the way. Hop in."

"'Sup." The small androgynous looking person in the back was distracted and spoke only half-heartedly, tapping away on a 3DS. A Hershel schoolbag bedecked with multi-coloured pins rested beside them and Shiro connected the dots.

"Your little sister?" Shiro asked warily, reluctantly opening the rusted passenger side door and scooting in. Something warm and moderately sticky was under his ass and he tried not to think about what it could be. Matt nodded, plopping reflective Ray-Bans back onto his face as he merged back out onto the road and completed an illegal U-turn. Shiro buckled his seatbelt very tightly.

"Yep. Katie, say hi to Shiro."

"I told you to call me Pidge," she responded in the back bad-temperedly. "And leave me alone. I'm like, this close to beating Bowser on my speed-run."

"Yeah, she's advanced placement," Matt hissed, 'whispering', even though he was talking loudly enough for Pidge to still hear. The music was so loud that everybody had to yell to be heard, anyways. "'Pidge' is her gamer-tag and she's super into that. Smartie pants, huge nerd, sort of weird, smartass, yadda-yadda. Runs in the blood. Anyways, how are _you_ , bro?!" Matt reached forwards and finally turned down the volume, drifting eerily close to the right-hand lane as he did. He beamed over at Shiro, who was clutching the car door handle with white knuckles. "I haven't seen you in like, what-two years? You've been back for about a month or so, right?"

"Yeah, about that long. I'm good. Thanks, Matt." Shiro felt like he was rolling this off of his tongue by memory at this point, so exhausted that he had nothing but the default to say. His blood was probably replaced with instant coffee at this point, and it was a miracle that he was still up and running at all.

"What were you doing in Antarctica again?" Matt drummed out a solo on the wheel, bobbing his head.

"We actually went and measured the effects of pulsar rays on-"

"Oh, sorry dude," Matt interjected, wincing before Shiro could even finish his sentence. "I can't really think about all that space shit when I'm sober. Too existential. Tell me when I'm drunk or something. Pidge, it's a right here, right?"

"Right… fuck, he got me! No!" She howled with what sounded like real agony. Shiro resisted the urge to turn back and reprimand the young girl for swearing; he'd probably get more than he asked for if he even tried. The Holt family always delivered on quirky individuals that specialized in unexpected surprises. Like Matt said, it must've run in the blood.

Matt took a left on red, dutifully ignoring the honks from other exasperated drivers. He reached forwards and cranked the music to the maximum volume once more. Shiro rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginnings of a migraine beginning to take root at the base of his skull. It couldn't be helped; taking transit all the way to school was a lot less convenient than tagging along with Matt, who was in the faculty of Computer Science, neighbouring his building of Physical Science. Shiro's own dinky Honda civic was in the shop, wheezing along as it neared its final breaths. Uber fares were a lot to him, seeing as Shiro could hardly keep the lights on. Matt and the gross Caravan with a screeching Pidge in the back it was.

Shiro had known Matthew Holt for the better half of a decade. They'd been roommates in Garrison High, a boarding school for bright students all across America. Matt had been a lot nerdier and a lot less lax back in those days-but then again, so had he. They'd gone through all four years of suffering together at uni, too; Shiro had graduated summa cum laude beside Matt, who had snatched up the role of valedictorian for their year. Even after they diverged paths for their graduate studies, Matt and Shiro had been able to keep up their friendship. Matt had an easygoing, if not crass personality that made it easy to talk to him even if they hadn't spoken for months. Shiro didn't think he had a closer friend than Matt. After unwittingly seeing your friend's dong time after time in the dorms, it didn't get much more intimate.

Matt was also the son of Samuel Holt, Shiro's own astrophysics professor at Voltron State University. Shiro's phD thesis had apparently impressed Sam so much that Shiro was invited to a professional excursion to the remotest camps of Antarctica for two years. A select few biochemists, geologists, astrophysicists, and confused penguins banded together to study the nature of space on _terra mater_ in the most remote location you could get to. Shit happened, both good and bad. Shiro's right arm ached and he rubbed it absent-mindedly.

Fast forwards to now, where he was suddenly offered a position to teach first year astrophysics at VSU. He couldn't say no, because it was Sam asking-but Shiro hadn't exactly had a tonne of experience in the field, much less _teaching_ experience. Still, he was doing his best to wing it as he went. Shiro's whole life had gone into a whirlwind ever since getting back from the quiet isolation of Antarctica, and he wasn't really sure how to cope with the sudden adjustment. So he just kind of left that cesspool of anxiety… there. Real healthy, right?

Shiro was thrown forwards by momentum and untangled himself from the asphyxiating seatbelt as Matt killed the gear. He'd been so distracted that he lost track of his surroundings. Looking up through the grimy windshield, he spotted an unfamiliar looking brick school, with lanky high schoolers mingling about the school grounds. They sported odd fashions and looking upon them made him feel like a complete alien-or, put more simply, like an old man. The early October wind was bringing in cold air, and he saw kids huddle together like Emperor penguins would against Arctic windstorms.

"Have a good day at school, kiddo!" Matt sang, propping up his sunglasses as he craned to look to the backswat. "Try not to get detention today or Mom'll be really mad! Also walk Bae-Bae when you get home! Don't screw around with the X-Box all day!"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you already! Jeez. Bye, Mr. Shiro." Pidge slammed the door and dragged her bag behind her as she kept on fiddling with her 3DS, precariously dodging cars and bikers and pedestrians with her head down as she walked into the school. Shiro raised his eyebrows. He'd known about Sam's daughter from stories but had never really met the Holt family, besides Matt. Even though they were all quite close, the clock always ran short, and Shiro never had (or made) enough time for things like that. He was a work-a-holic at heart.

"She seems like a nice kid," Shiro said, trying to make the air more pleasant than Matt's weird blue pine-tree shaped car freshener. 

"Teenage angst and hormones," Matt sighed in response melodramatically. He threw the car into reverse, humming to himself to the beat of the music. Thankfully, he turned it down again, giving Shiro's ears a welcome break. "We were like that once."

"Sure."

"You _are_ okay, right?" He looked over, serious now. "Dad told me about what happened to you, and…" Matt's eyes dropped before he could stop himself, but Shiro didn't blame him. He was used to it by now. He pulled on the cuff of his Oxford self-consciously and shrugged.

"Yeah, never been better. I'm good."

"Okay… if you say so. But hey, speaking of school 'n stuff!" Matt perked up again, switching the topic, seeming to sense Shiro's reluctance to dwell on specifics. "How's teaching going? I forgot that you've only been prof for like, a month. Bully anybody into dropping out yet?" Matt snickered, and Shiro felt badly for the poor souls that Matt was currently tormenting in Honours COMSCI.

"It's okay, I think. Actually…" Shiro was already cringing at the memory. "I assigned this quiz last week and a couple of kids seriously tanked, so I think my teaching is off. I mean, how do you get _zero_ out of twenty on the multiple choice? I thought people could've at least guessed _one_. So I'm definitely going to have to try and do better or something. Maybe it's my PowerPoints? Do you think I should use less transitions…?"

"Hey, don't stress it. A lot of kids fresh out of high school hit rock bottom in first semester. VSU's a tough school and there's no babying freshies. Not your responsibility to account for 'em all. If they can't handle it, they shouldn't have taken the class. How're you curving?"

Shiro winced grimly. "No amount of curving can help some of these kids." 

"Oh. SOL, then. Can't help bimodial distribution, my dude."

"Yeah, I know. But…" 

For some reason, a girl's name popped up onto his head. It had been written lightly on the Scantron in no special way, but the name had sounded particularly nice and stuck with him as he marked. Her results had been a little less than satisfactory, but she'd come really close to passing, and it made him want to root for her all the more. He'd almost erased one of the ticks before catching himself. That would be a break of academic integrity, wasn't it? Shiro had never been one of those 'underachieving' types, but he felt like this girl wasn't slacking off on purpose. But even now, he still wasn't sure why he'd been so hung up on that particular Scantron.

"It's a left here, right?"

"Uh, no. Pretty sure it's a right on Altea Boulevard..."

Matt turned left, again, swearing under his breath as the GPS in the car recalculated impatiently. Shiro didn't mind it; they weren't late yet, and the bad 90's pop music helped him sink deep into his mind and find some of that peace he'd gotten from the dead lands of Antarctica. [Name] [Surname], right? Shiro hoped she was doing well. Maybe she wasn't eating, or maybe something was on her mind, and that's why she didn't do so hot on that quiz. Maybe he could help her out? Would that be favouritism?

In any case, she probably could've been better off if Matt didn't nearly run her over with his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my em dashes (—) get deleted when i copy out of ms word and like. i have so many that i really can't be bothered to go in and edit each (-) out.... so sorry....... i promise ik what i'm doing.....


	3. 3. Hello From the Other Side; You Should Have Checked Before You Crossed

You’d plugged your ears with heavy-duty noise cancelling earbuds and dialed your “im sad af” Spotify playlist up to the max. Talking with Lance had only made you realize _just_ how much of a lonely ass bitch you were. How did he do it? Sure, he had the advantage of being fluent in Spanish, which was hot in of itself; but he was also fashionable, irresistibly attractive, charismatic, wonderfully sarcastic, charming, sexually fluid and assertive, confident… 

Oh, God. You’d really come all this way just to be the ugly friend.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d start sighing and whining out loud while Adele wept against your eardrums. Maybe you’d have your third mental breakdown of the day when you got back to your dorm after morning block ended. You’d never seen your roommate, not even once. Their bed was always perfectly made, and they had zero personal furniture—you had once tried to snoop, just for a curious peek, but their closet was unlocked and entirely empty. So, they’d either illegally moved in with somebody else without informing the school, or they were a vampire. In any case, you’d be alone in peace.

Campus was always busy. Right now, classes were starting to transition, and thus the terrifying Scramble commenced. Thousands of students at a time rushed around, creating the feeling of trekking through a bustling city’s downtown core. Voltron State had one of the largest campuses in the entire country, and some students literally had to catch a bus to get to their next class on time. Fortunately for you, your classes and labs had lined up in such a way that you could stay in one building each day. People hurried around you and with you in a constant stream, like fellow anchovies in a nervous swarm. A guy in a tattered giraffe-patterned onesie skated past you on a penny board while wiping tears from his face. The sight wasn’t even surprising anymore, and you dully noted that taking up skateboarding might be effective in getting around faster.

The Faculty of Physical Sciences building was one of the largest and shittiest of VSU’s campus. It was the oldest and got the least amount of care, despite being one of the most important faculties in the science-based university. Most of the school funding went to renovating the precious Balmera School of Engineering building. Your lips curled into a sneer as you thought about it, pretentiously glistening blue in the sun. Engineering nerds were always the worst to be around. They’d just start calculating your deficits and debt right in front of you for ‘math practice’, relishing in tears. Assholes.

In any case, the sad building loomed in the distance, its sand-coloured collegiate walls a monument of suffering against the void-like grey sky. An October storm seemed to be coming in, made obvious by the harsh gusts of wind that would rip your hair this way and that. You held it down as you walked, looking down at your feet to avoid tripping over cracks or potholes. Or—an idea sputtered the lightbulb over your head. Maybe you _ought_ to take a spill and sue the school? 

Well, maybe another day you’d really consider that. You had to get to class early so you could talk to Professor Shiro without exposing your dumb ass to the rest of your classmates. 

You hadn’t been valedictorian material, too anti-social and whatnot, but you’d still managed to keep up a solid 4.1 GPA during high school. For grades nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, you had done nothing but study your ass off. No parties. No boyfriends, or girlfriends, or even real friends for the matter—all of your social interactions revolved around school. Your SAT score wasn’t revolutionary, but it was high enough to get you admitted into VSU. The bullshit in your admission essay had worked, luckily, and all those hours of rugby (that you didn’t play) and band (that you didn’t participate in) helped you get into one of the top schools of America. VSU wasn’t Ivy but was heavily specialized in astronomical science and research. It partnered closely with NASA and most (if not all) notable alumni were famed for their work with the cosmos. If you went to VSU, you were pretty much guaranteed a job in the field. As long as you graduate, that is. You cringed a bit, thinking about your academic standing. 

Nothing _bad_ had really happened to you or anything like that. Nothing had really changed, either. You applied the same studying techniques you had all throughout high school, but you were still slipping, and slipping still. Nothing ever made sense anymore and it was all happening so fast that you didn’t even have time to know what you didn’t fucking know. The ‘panic’ stage had already flung past you in September, and now it was just a dull acknowledgement that you had never been quite as smart as you thought you’d been. All of your peers seemed to be geniuses, whether they were popular like Lance or straight-up successful. A girl in your class had already been invited onto a NASA team to program the next flight path for an upcoming supply mission. NASA didn’t even follow you back on Twitter. 

It was still your fault, though. You didn’t exactly ask questions in class—but how could you, with a hundred and fourty-nine people watching your every move? You didn’t go to tutorials either, much too ashamed of yourself to admit that you needed help. Your teachers in high school had always had such high expectations of you, and so did your family, and so did all of your classmates back then, too. It was like you didn’t even _know_ how to simply ask for help. Where did you even begin? It probably didn’t help that you didn’t even have the confidence to face any of your professors either. 

But Professor ‘Shiro’ Shirogane was different. Yeah, he was young and attractive, but that made him a bit more approachable. Some of your most demonic profs looked like they were a second away from death, and them looking at your latest lab score would probably end up killing them on the spot. 

You had never actually said anything to Professor Shiro yet. At the very beginning of the semester, you had sent him an awkwardly stiff e-mail because a bug had barred you from the online class shell. He’d replied with a smiley face just above the iconic _sent from my iPhone_ tagline, and you kept it on your phone still.

He was just… a really nice guy. It was clear that he was passionate about astrophysics and astronomy in general. Even though you didn’t get jack shit about it, he lit up whenever he lectured, scribbling incoherently on the blackboard and going off on tangents and just rambling about his love for space. He wasn’t at a stage where he hated his job, either—the people who were actually confident enough to participate in lectures always seemed to be treated like friends rather than students. You might’ve dropped out a long time ago if it wasn’t for him. Even though you hadn’t yet had a real conversation with him, you were still hoping to see him today. If you didn’t get over your fear today, you’d be in big trouble.

The quiz last Friday had been the final straw, dropping your average below the 52 line. If you didn’t scramble out of that ditch and hit the 70s by the mid-term, you’d be failed out before the course was even over. You wouldn’t get the credit for the course, and you wouldn’t even get to re-do it until next year. You needed this class as a pre-req towards all other senior branches of astronomy: astrobio, astrochem, astrophys, archaeoastro, astroastro… well, the list went on. You weren’t going to go anywhere without ASPH1101.

Why did you even want to be an astronomer so badly anyways? Was it even fucking worth it? Tuition was one fiery hell pit to think about already, but how were you going to do this for the rest of your life when you couldn’t even pass a quiz in first year? Maybe you should’ve listened to your parents and followed an easier career, like accounting or something _grounded_. Clearly, you’d overshot it—you weren’t making the moon and you certainly weren’t going to land amongst the stars. No, you’d landed your ass in the burning shithole called post-secondary education, and you had seriously fucked up.

“Aw, fuck!” you swore, realizing you had fucked up and walked a good quarter mile down Altea Boulevard, which was the opposite to where you needed to go. Your feet had just started to take you back to the dorms automatically, probably gravitationally attracted to your waiting bed. You’d have to turn around, back-track, and shortcut across the Oriande Gardens if you wanted to even make it on time. So much for confronting the prof today.

“Fuck this goddamn school and its shitass roads,” you growled to yourself crassly as you veered left to stomp across the road. “Fuck _me_. God.”

It was a one-way street and there was no oncoming traffic, so you just assumed you were good to go—until you noticed an ugly Dodge caravan barrelling at you two yards away. At first, you just stood there and watched it come towards you, not really realizing what was going on. It was a one-way road, so there was no reason for a car to be driving down this lane from that direction. The smell of burnt rubber permeated the air and you distantly heard screeching through your depressing music, the tempo of which slowing you down even more. Finally, your muscles seized—fuck, you were straight up about to get run the _fuck_ over!

You dived out of the way and hit the ground hard, sliding a few feet over the sharp gravel stones. It was safe to say that your stinging road burn was the least of your worries. Your textbook laden bag practically nailed you onto the ground but gave you just enough momentum to clear you out of the car’s path. It screeched and came to a stop right where you had been standing just a second ago. You gasped for breath, gulping it down past the acrid taste of asphalt. Your head was spinning, but at least you were feeling something. Wiggling your fingers and toes, you confirmed that you were still alive. 

“Oh my god, are you all right?!”

You peered up blearily. The kicked-up dust from your less than graceful fall blurred your vision, and the sharp pain of your newly scraped up limbs brought tears to your eyes. You heard a car door slam—and then another one—and then somebody with strong arms was practically lifting you up off of the ground. Did God hit up the gym or something?

“[Name]?” 

Professor Shiro gaped at you and his hands slackened a bit, dropping your butt back onto the hard ground. He kept his hands on your shoulders to steady you, because you seemed to be leaning backwards as the forces of Newtonian gravity fought against you. You winced but nodded obediently, rubbing your eyes with the hand that hadn’t broken your fall.

“ _Fuck_ , kid. You can’t just jump out onto the road like that! Holy shit. You good?” Another guy was leaning over you concernedly, but you didn’t recognize him. You scowled at the idea of being blamed for _his_ shitty driving.

“It’s a one-way… I didn’t think—”

“You could’ve been seriously hurt, [Name]. You’re lucky that nothing bad happened. Jesus…”

You looked away from the brunet and to Professor Shiro, who still hadn’t let go of you. His finger twitched on your shoulder and you were suddenly hyper aware of his movements. His face was set grimly but had a flush of relief across it. You’d never been this close to a guy before, much less this _attractive_ of a man, and woozily smelt a cologne that you’d probably choked on in some department store once before. A streak of greying hair was combed out, and you could see the silver strands sparkling throughout the rest of his dark hair like faraway stars in the Milky Way.

“I-I’m fine,” you managed, startled by how much he seemed to care. Scrambling, you put your palm down to try and heave yourself to your feet, but the hard gravel on your raw flesh made your elbow give and you collapsed back down. Professor Shiro caught you again, his arms stiff but supportive.

“All right, I’m taking you to the infirmary. C’mon.”

“B-but, wait. I’ll be late for class—hey, _we’ll_ be late! I’m fine, really—”

You’d forgotten entirely about your supposed appointment with Professor Shiro. Almost dying kind of takes priority. Still, you had only been supposed to see him a couple of minutes before ASPH1101 began. The clock was ticking away, and you really couldn’t afford to miss any class, much less steal the professor away from the lesson you were about to miss.

“I’ll take her if you’ve gotta get to class,” the other man offered, standing up. He turned to the crowd of people who had taken out their phones, craning around the others to get a good look. With horror, you realized that you were probably going to make the school’s Snap story. Everybody was going to see Professor Shiro, hotshot prof, holding _your_ ratty looking ass up in his beefy arms. Oh _god_. You should have just been run over.

“Nothing to see here kiddos!” Other Guy That Almost Killed You yelled, waving his arms to shoo the crowd off. “Let’s move onto classes before I call your folks and pull your student status! You! I’ll expel you right now—hey! I’m serious, dork; try me!”

You realized there was a badge lanyard clipped to the back Other Guy’s jeans and recognized the design to be a teacher-specific one. You almost got slaughtered by a professor? Well, way to make the metaphor of America’s school system real. Dr. Matthew Holt cleared people away and you moved your attention back to Professor Shiro, who was pulling you up to your feet.

“Ow,” you hissed, unable to help it as you put weight onto one side. It was the one you’d eaten shit on. Your bruised hip wasn’t having it and your legs shook, both from weakness and the sudden jolt of adrenaline. Student life had made you sedentary, and that jump was the most athletic move you had performed in your entire life.

“Sorry; just lean onto me a bit more,” Professor Shiro suggested.

He was a lot taller than you, and a lot broader. You hesitated; although you’d definitely had thoughts about jumping into the man’s arms before, you really didn’t think you’d end up actually groping him in your miserable lifetime. He shifted in your reluctance and put an arm around you. For a moment you worried that he was just going to pick you up bridal style or something, but he stooped down to your height to act as a make-shift walker so you could actually get to the car.

“Hey Matt, just drop us both off at the North West campus infirmary. You have class first period too.”

“Yeah, but…” He hesitated and glanced between you and Professor Shiro, clearly understanding the current equation’s problem. If Professor Shiro ditched the lecture to look after you, who was teaching the class? Who was going to fly this sinking plane?!

“It’s fine,” Professor Shiro waved off, seeming very nonchalant about just flaking on his _own_ class. “Just hurry up, all right? You’ll be late, and [Name] should get checked out as soon as possible.”

“Well… okay, up to you.” Dr. Holt gave in quickly, losing his hand in the back of his messy hair as he scratched at it awkwardly. He turned to you with sympathetic eyes, extending the other hand for an apologetic handshake. “Sorry about that again, uh…?”

“[Name],” Professor Shiro supplied before you could open your mouth. You gaped at him. So he really _had_ known your name, and you actually hadn’t hallucinated that? How could he remember you of all people in a class of one hundred and fifty? It wasn’t the only block he was teaching, either—professors at VSU could teach over hundreds of students in a single semester. Were you really that memorable, saying nothing and sitting ashamedly in the back? Had you just failed so badly that he felt obliged to mark you down for review? Your thoughts spun and it clashed with the onset of shock, making your brain slow down to a crawl. You only realized Dr. Holt was looking at you weirdly with his hand hanging in the air when Shiro squeezed your arm, making you jump.

“You _are_ okay, right? You didn’t hit your head or anything?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” you managed to stammer out. Dr. Holt was also a highly attractive man, with bright eyes and a soft, concerned face. Were you stress dreaming? Or had the car hit you and you were currently in some sort of thirst coma? For a second you thought of what Lance would say if he saw you now—he’d either be outrageously jealous and break your Snap streak on purpose on the spot, or be embarrassingly proud like some sort of pseudo-mother. 

“The doctor there is going to check you out. Can you get up into the backseat?” Professor Shiro’s voice was as gentle as his hands, which warmed you through your shirt. You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak anymore. The worst thing you could do right now in this vulnerable moment was let your crush spill out. You were having a tough enough time breathing as is—you really didn’t need to add _that_ shame into the mix. He eased you up into the car and then clipped your seatbelt for you, which suddenly made you feel juvenile, like your father was doing up your safety seat. A tidal wave of sick emotions ripped through your gut. How could you think that even for a moment he was interested in you? Of _course_ he was taking care of you like this—he probably saw you as his little sister or something. You were an absolute idiot. Your throat was thick as you swallowed down your emotions.

Dr. Holt and Professor Shiro both got back into the front of the car, its engine still running. They spoke in low voices and you couldn’t quite hear them, but you caught Professor Shiro’s face in the right-hand mirror—he was openly pissed, and the expression was so different from his amiable countenance that it was almost funny. 

“Okay. Let’s go the _right_ way this time, shall we?” Dr. Holt said cheerfully, in an attempt to lighten the mood. 

“Shut _up_ and fu… dude. Just drive, Matt.”

“O- _kay_ then…”

Cool. This was going to be the _worst_ family road trip, ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at this point in time i am a canadian 12th grader so forgive me if reader/shiro's AMURICAN uni experience is not truly AUTHENTIC alright i'm making do with what i've got!!! blame google if the conversions aren't accurate !!
> 
> anyways, i'm writing as i plan (lol always a gr8 idea), and i just thought of the angst drop... ho ho. lotor fucking shit up, anyone? :^


	4. 4. Cool. I Want To Die

Matt dropped Shiro and [Name] off in front of the infirmary building, actually managing to avoid (nearly) running over any other unfortunate students. Matt offered [Name] another awkward apology as he hung out the window, clearly feeling pressured under Shiro’s glare. Even though it was definitely Matt’s fault and hardly anybody else’s, Shiro knew that Matt genuinely felt bad and decided to drop it. After just a bit longer of being pissed, of course. Nobody was _that_ good of a person.

[Name] kept on trying to protest his help as she unbuckled herself, but he wasn’t about to just ditch a crippled student in the middle of the sidewalk. Even if it wasn’t her and somebody else, he’d do the same thing… probably.

He put one of her arms around his shoulders and bent his knees down to her height, feeling like he was doing some sort of weird crab walk dance. They shuffled along painfully slowly because it looked like she could hardly put any weight onto her left leg. It’d be a lot easier to pick her up or piggyback her, and he almost suggested it, before remembering that it’d be highly inappropriate to have your prof suddenly throw you onto his back. Even if it was with good intentions. He bit down the embarrassment at the thought.

“Professor Shirogane…?” 

Her timid voice thankfully brought him out of his fast-deteriorating mind and he nodded thankfully, perking up a bit.

“Just Shiro is fine.” 

He still wasn’t very comfortable with the ‘prof’ title tacked onto the front of his name. He’d only held his doctorate for what, a year? VSU was an accelerated school and he’d managed to complete both his undergrad bachelor’s and grad school doctorate in a mere eight years. Sam was a really nice guy; maybe overly so. He was the one to give Shiro those opportunities that only seemed to come your way after you’d had decades in the field. The only reason Shiro was sitting pretty in the hotseat was through good luck. Besides, he was only 27 for Christ’s sake; ‘Professor Shirogane’ made him sound seventy. The thought made him shudder as the brewing storm’s wind ripped through his light clothing. God, he hoped the girl he was currently helping limp along didn’t see him as her dad or something. That’d be… devastating to the ego, to say the least.

They entered the automatic doors together and turned into the infirmary. There were always doctors or NPs on call 24/7 for the gigantic school population. With something like 10,000 on-site residents, and thousands more actual attendees, it was like Voltron State was a large town of its own. Both teachers and students alike got most of their healthcare from VSU facilities, and the clinic was one of the best, anyways. 

As expected, the clinic was huge and bedecked with shiny décor. VSU could afford a crystal chandelier in an infirmary, but double ply toilet paper in the Physical Sciences building was out of the question? Shiro’s nose crinkled at the sight. He could probably steal one of these paintings off the wall and make more from it than his entire salary—and the theft would probably be less stressful than trying to earn tenure, anyways.

A couple of people were already lined up before the front desk. The young man in front of Shiro was clutching an icepack to his cheek, which was already purpling with a bruise. The loose football jersey over the unfortunate fellow’s broad frame explained enough.

“O-Okay then.” [Name] continued to move alongside him, looking uncomfortable. The spill she’d taken was pretty nasty from what he’d seen, and the flimsy jacket and thin leggings she’d worn didn’t do much to protect her skin. Hefty scrapes dotted the entire left side of her body, the rough gravel on the asphalt having shredded through her clothes like tissue paper. They moved forwards a bit again as she thought about what to say. “Um. You should really just get to class. I’ll be fine here on my own.”

“It’s _fine_ ,” he pressed, shuffling her forwards once more as bruised-face kid got admitted. “I’d feel bad if I left you here alone. Your parents aren’t around, are they?”

“No,” she replied, looking mildly surprised to be asked that. It was most common for students to dorm; property near VSU was pretty much triple the market, and only the richest of the rich bothered to live in the secluded area VSU was nestled into. Shiro had boarded in a dorm himself when he’d attended with Matt.

[Name] continued hastily, shaking her head as if trying to get a thought to physically fall out of her skull. “But I can take care of myself from here—”

“Once I’m sure you’re okay, I’ll go,” he insisted. Truth be told, it was a bit of an empty promise. He’d thought that he’d leave when she was checked in, but now he figured he should stay for the doctor’s diagnosis. In the case that something was serious, nobody should be alone to get news like that. Besides, what if she _did_ have a concussion? She’d need somebody to take her back to her dorm. It was all rationalized in his head, even if it appeared to be an overly concerned old man hovering around a young lady to an outsider. 

“But, you don’t even have a sub or anything…” 

Her words only just reminded him that he’d really, legitimately ditched his class, and he winced. He’d totally forgotten that the bell was due in four minutes. But, even if he left now and sprinted towards his classroom, he’d be something like twenty minutes late anyways.

“Ah, right.” He grimaced but shrugged soon after. “It’ll just be a study tutorial. I wasn’t going to lecture anything major today anyways.”

It was truthful—after that quiz last Friday, he guessed that moving on with lessons wasn’t going to benefit anybody. A few people had done well, but a lot of people hadn’t—including [Name] [Surname]. Her handwriting flashed in his head while he watched her scrawl her name down onto the sign-in sheet. She slid her ID card across the counter and he stared down at her handwriting. It was just the same; each letter as he remembered it, only in blue ink instead of shaky pencil.

“Take a seat, you two…” the nurse said, looking up at him with surprised but clearly interested eyes. Shiro nodded down at him and then walked [Name] to the waiting area, helping her hop along while trying to ignore the feeling of being stared at.

“Are you sure?” she persisted, almost whiny at this point. “I feel bad making you wait with me when you’ve got class. I mean… you’re the _prof_.”

“Don’t feel bad,” he waved off. Honestly, it was nice to have a secret break, even if he shouldn’t admit that out loud. To try and lift the guilty expression on her face, he said, “I mean, you could just think of it as office hours! Even though it’s… not.” 

It was an awkward thing to say and he knew it, but her face split into a tiny smile. Maybe it was out of pity for his weird pseudo-joke, but it reassured him somewhat. 

“I, uh, was actually hoping to see you for tutorial. Funny how that works…”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Matt’s a shitty driver.” He probably shouldn’t have sworn, but the short feeling of regret was just a force of habit. She didn’t seem to mind or even notice. Students at this point in their life ran their mouths off with gleeful abandon, anyways.

“I’d probably be a lot worse behind a wheel. Nothing that bad really happened, so it’s okay.” She laughed nervously and then fiddled with one of the rips in the bend of her pants. She’d nearly gotten flattened by an ugly ass car and she didn’t even seem that concerned about it? He reached over to lift her fingers from pulling at the threads and felt her stiffen under his hand. Shit, he shouldn’t have touched her—but it was too late now and she was staring openly at him, so he had to say _something_.

“You should, uh, really take care of yourself.” 

It sounded awkward as hell yet again. Good one, Shiro! But at least he genuinely meant it. College was hard for everybody. For his entire first year, he’d eaten nothing but those Sapporo Ichiban noodles, and he couldn’t even think about instant ramen without feeling sick to the stomach. She glanced down, grimacing somewhat, her fingers trembling under his.

“Thanks. But, I’m um… I want to say that I’m really sorry about Friday’s quiz, by the way. I don’t really know what happened. I just had a lot to study for because of the calc exam and the AMAT quiz and then there was the o-chem lab that I tanked…” Her voice began to shake and Shiro realized with an electric jolt through the heart that she was on the brink of tears. Her hand tightened into a fist and he probably should’ve let go at this point, but instead, he squeezed her hand. 

“I know. I figured life was hard for you. If you need help with anything, you can always ask.” It was the advice he gave to all of his students, but he felt particularly connected to her right now. He’d been in the same rut too. He’d always been the ‘gifted’ student, carrying people’s expectations with him. Things kept piling and piling on you until it felt like you were holding up the whole goddamn sky. He’d always ground his teeth together and kept moving forwards, but he knew that everybody coped differently. Not everybody could deal with the pressure. 

“I just feel so dumb,” she whispered weakly, in a way that forced him to lean in closer just to hear. “I just don’t get it, and you’re such a nice teacher too so it’s all my fault that I don’t get the readings, and… all my other profs are fucking hounding my ass. I used to be in the top ten back in high school, and now—!”

“Everybody in first year goes through a learning curve,” he tried to soothe, remembering back to what Matt had said about people flunking out in first semester. He probably shouldn’t mention the astronomically high number of people who failed out of VSU when she was about to cry about failing, though. “It’s a really tough course, especially when you’re just out of high school. We’ve all been there.”

“I shouldn’t be _failing_ though.” She looked up, her eyes glossy and puffy with tears. “I mean, who gets _zero_ out of twenty on an MC? I couldn’t even guess _one_?”

He resisted the urge to cringe. Right. Hurriedly, he tried to think of something to say, but she’d already started shaking her head and wiping her face with the other hand that wasn’t under his.

“I’m sorry. First you take me all the way to the infirmary and now you have to listen to me bitch…”

“Don’t be. You can talk to me whenever you need to, even if it’s not about celestial mechanics.”

“See? _This_ is what I mean. You’re so _nice_ that I feel even _shittier_ for failing your course.” She laughed a bit without humour, hiccupping through her tears. He finally remembered to take his hand away, hurriedly pulling it back. It quickly missed the warmth in the cool air-conditioned clinic.

“Like I said, you can come to tutorial any time. I’ll replace it if you re-test and do better.”

“Seriously?!” she choked out, her crying totally forgotten. “You’d really do a total mark replacement like that?”

“I mean, you’ve demonstrated your knowledge, so yeah. I don’t have a problem doing that.” He was a bit embarrassed now that she seemed to be looking up at him with the same awe a worshipper at a shrine would and felt self-conscious. She nodded rapidly.

“If I don’t get run over on the way, I’ll definitely be there! And I’ll try to at least guess one right for the multiple choice.”

“When in doubt, it’s C, right?”

They shared a secretive laugh and it felt kind of nice to be on the inside of an inside joke for once. He was often so busy that he missed out on parties and other forms of ‘adult’ socializing. The only people he ever saw on a regular basis was Matt and his students. He had a better relationship with the coffee machine in the staff room than most of his colleagues.

In any case, it made him feel better that she looked optimistic now. That dreary expression of self-hatred had been a bit too familiar. A soft smile tugged on his lips and he turned away, excusing himself with a fake cough. It wasn’t long until a woman with a white coat trotted out, looking down at her iPad as she walked.

“Right, Ms. [Name] [Surname]?”

“Yeah.” She stood and Shiro stood with her, but [Name] already seemed to be moving better after sitting and resting. It made him glad, of course, but the first sting of emotion was disappointment that she didn’t need any of his help anymore. Maybe it was best that he got going now. The doctor glanced up and looked down at [Name] and then up at Shiro.

“Boyfriend?” she asked disinterestedly. “Sorry. You’ll have to wait outside. If the visit is for a pregnancy test then you will get results after a consultation with—”

“Whoa—no. It’s not like that! I’m her professor.” 

He’d always been a pretty strong guy. He worked out regularly and ate right and was gifted with good genetics. He’d never felt this close to fainting before. Was the ceiling spinning? 

“Oh my god, no—h-he’s my prof! I’m just here because I fell and I might need crutches. That’s all!” 

[Name] looked absolutely mortified and seemed to have paled a couple of shades. The doctor blew a faintly pink bubble, popping it over her poppy-stained lips. She glanced to [Name] and then to Shiro again, clearly giving them a judgemental once-over in her head. Finally, she shrugged, releasing him from that pitiful stare.

“Okay, sorry ‘bout that. Miss. [Surname], come along with me. We’ll get you weighed first, and then…” 

Shiro wondered as [Name] hobbled away, shooting an apologetic look over her shoulder… just how hard would it _really_ be to blast yourself into the sun?


	5. 5 - Y'all Are Stupid

Even though you hadn’t really done much today besides almost die, you were completely, totally, wholly, thoroughly, and utterly motherfucking pooped.

Dr. Vega had cleared you to be in acceptable health—because no first-year college student was ever ‘excellent’. She gave you an antiseptic ointment to rub on your road rash and a wave goodbye. That was it. Apparently, you didn’t qualify for crutches and had to gingerly lug your bruised ass back home with nothing but the sheer force of saltiness alone. But you guessed you were lucky to not have any breaks. The autumn storm had really kicked up while you’d been in the clinic, and cold wind ravaged your fresh bandages. You sighed irritably as you limped back to a shuttle stop that’d take you back to your dorm. You just couldn’t find it in you to attend your other classes and didn’t feel the least bit guilty for flaking out on them. What you _did_ feel, though…

_“Boyfriend?”_

The blush that rose to your cheeks felt even hotter in the numbingly frigid air. Did you really look good enough to be mistaken as Professor Shiro’s girlfriend? _Him_? Beside _you_? Maybe the good doctor was the one who really needed a check-up here, because nobody in their right state of mind would ever equate somebody like you to somebody like _him_. 

The rest of the appointment with Dr. Vega had been stiflingly awkward after she’d accidentally mistaken your visit to be for a pregnancy test. It was all on your end, though. She was totally professional about it and wasn’t the least bit bothered, but why should she be? It was just a simple mistake, right? But you couldn’t help but feel like you were starting to be too hung up on it. Somebody actually thought that you were Shiro’s girlfriend. Somebody thought… that Shiro had knocked you up, too. And, after all, to get pregnant, you had to… well… 

You weren’t a prude and you were no stranger to the birds and the bees, but _god_ , did you feel stupid right about now.

The dorms were practically empty, as expected, seeing as it was still the middle of classes for most. Anybody who didn’t have a lab or class was probably asleep. You unlocked your door at the end of the hall and turned on the lights. No roommate, as usual. Nothing was ever disturbed on that side of the room. You could probably take it for yourself and nobody would care, but you didn’t even have that much stuff to need extra space, so you just kept to your half. Your own desk was as messily decorated with multi-coloured notes and miscellaneous wrappers and cans as it had been when you’d left this morning. You flopped down onto your bed and let out a soft moan of pain as you slowly dragged the covers over yourself. You and Shiro. What’d your last name be if you married him? Mrs. Shirogane? And what about the wedding? Maybe he had some cultural heritage that would be tied in. Maybe it’d be a church wedding, or even a destination one on a faraway beach. He seemed to be the type to like beaches. Or it could even be a shotgun wedding—

“No!” you hissed aloud, pulling the blankets over your face as if that’d make the thoughts go away. You couldn’t keep thinking about this. Especially not like it would _happen_. You couldn’t sit here and daydream about marrying your goddamn, hot ass professor—because he was your _professor_! Power balance aside, he was _how_ much older than you? You only knew his first name by hopelessly stalking his e-mail profile. You didn’t know anything else about him. In the strictly hypothetical case that things _weren’t_ actually inappropriate, he would have no trace of interest in you of all people. If he wasn’t your teacher, and just some dude on the street, perhaps—he’d probably be the one to almost run you over and keep on keeping on without looking back. 

The thought didn’t break your heart since it was the most reasonable outcome and your probable reality. But you wished that it _had_ hurt more; you wished that you’d have some semblance of intelligence in your stupid monkey brain to be deterred, because you still couldn’t help but wonder _what if_.

“Why couldn’t I just have a crush on the guy in front of me or something instead?” you whined, as if talking to yourself like a maniac might have more impact on your clearly crazy ass. “Why can’t I be like Lance and just drop boys left and right? Even though Lance actually _gets_ the boys…”

It was pathetic. You couldn’t even bear to face your own self anymore and resigned yourself to a midday depression nap, hoping that maybe you’d wake up refreshed and hydrated. That is: you prayed for this stupid thirst crush to just magically go away.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

\---

You woke up feverishly when somebody banged on your door. Groggy, you lay still in the hopes that the noise would stop, but it did no such thing and somehow got even louder. The voice was kind of familiar and you realized with a jolt that it was Lance McClain: muffled, but definitely cursing you out in fluid Span-glish. You rolled out of bed and winced when your bruises and scrapes complained, but you managed to hobble over to the door and opened it. The light flooding in from the hall blinded you and you stepped aside, rubbing the stars out of your eyes.

“God, Lance, what the fuck do you want?”

“I need to talk about cute boy from calc, like, _pronto_. Also, Hunk is here. Hunk, [Name]. She’s grumpy, but don’t mind her.”

“Hello,” an unfamiliar boy greeted, giving you an awkward wave. He was on the heavy side but had a kind-looking smile on his round face. He looked like he gave good hugs. You were honestly too tired to kick such a nice-looking person out, and wrestling with Lance would probably sap a couple of years off of your life. Wordlessly, you surrendered yourself to the situation and limped back into bed. Lance jumped into your mysterious roommate’s, and Hunk sat down cautiously on the floor since your chair was currently occupied with neglected laundry.

“He’s just so goddamn frustrating! Like, I don’t think anybody’s ever been dumber in the course of all human-motherfucking-history. [Name], guess what I told him today?”

“What,” you groaned, knowing he’d tell you whether you said anything back or not.

“I told him, ‘you’re cute’. In a total homosexual, gay way, right? And what did he say back?”

“‘Thank you’?” Hunk guessed from his cross-legged place on the floor. Lance snapped his fingers into a salt-loaded finger gun.

“ _Exactly_. Nothing else. No ‘I think you’re cute too’ or ‘let’s make out right now’. Nada. He just sat there and put his headphones back in. Like what the fuck! I’m _flirting with you_!”

“Can’t relate,” you muttered under your breath, remembering the shocked expression on the kind professor’s face when he realized somebody had thought he had fucked with scum (aka, you). 

“Why don’t you just move on?” Hunk suggested, justifiably so.

“I don’t _want_ to give up on him,” Lance replied peevishly, but with genuine determination. You raised your head.

“Is he _that_ cute?” you asked, now somewhat interested. Lance could pick up and drop people at the flip of a coin, and he’d never actually expressed this much interest in somebody before. They’d always been one-night stands or something even less than that. Lance didn’t seem the type to chase, always being chased. He frowned back.

“I mean, yeah, he’s hot. But he’s also…” Lance waved his hand in the air, frustrated. “I don’t know how to explain it. Something makes me genuinely want him to like me back.” He sat up stick-straight. “Is this what ugly people feel like?!”

“Lance McClain at a loss for words?” you mocked, lying back down. “Who _are_ you?”

“Hey, uh… [Name], right?” Hunk interrupted distractedly before Lance could fling a pillow at you. You looked down, almost forgetting he was there with his meek demeanour. 

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“This isn’t you… is it?” He held a phone up to you and you felt your heart drop.

 _“Nothing to see here kiddos! Let’s move…”_ You could see Dr. Holt trying to block off a scene, and the blurry footage managed to catch a glimpse of that ugly ass Dodge caravan in the back. Behind his arm was Professor Shiro, cradling a hot mess—and, oh wow. That mess was _you_. You hadn’t realized it at the time, but he had gotten _real_ close to you. Embarrassment made your blood run hot and it flushed your face, giving everything away before you could even start to defend yourself.

“ _What_?! Wait, I haven’t checked snap all day—Hunk, is that the school story?” Lance freaked, slipping his expensive iPhone out of his back pocket.

“Yep,” Hunk replied amiably, shrinking back after seeing the expression on your face.

“No way. [Name], you and the prof… _wow_! I didn’t think you had it in you!”

“Could you just shut up for once?” you hissed back, tensing up. You regretted it when felt your raw skin stretch underneath your bandages and winced. Lance had a sniper’s eyes and leant forwards excitedly when he saw you grimace in pain.

“Girl, _no_. That sore? You did not—he was your first—?!”

“ _No_!” you howled back, confounded that not one—but _two_ people had thought Shiro had stuck it in you. “I almost got hit by a car, so I fucking _fell_!”

“Oh, ouch. Do you want me to bake you something?” Hunk seemed very out of place in yours and Lance’s spitfire, innocently cringing up at you. His goodness dissipated some of your anger and you blinked back in confusion.

“Hunk cooks a lot,” Lance explained. “Anyways, _spill_ bitch! Was he good? If you didn’t bang then did you guys kiss? Did you tell him you’re into him?”

“Of course not!” you all but screamed. “What kind of psycho does that?! No—he just helped me to the infirmary like a _normal fucking guy_. That’s all, Lance, so drop it! I already told you it’s just a stupid crush. It’s never going to go anywhere!”

“Well, not with that attitude,” he simpered, finally seeming to realize that he had pinched a nerve with you. But you weren’t actually mad at him. You were more upset with the prospect that your affections were truly futile. You were actually just angry that Lance kept trying to keep your hopes up. You knew that he didn’t really mean it, but you just couldn’t have him keep pushing the idea that maybe, just maybe, things would work out. 

“Anyways, about Keith…” Lance continued a bit apologetically, but you weren’t in the mood to think about boys anymore. You let him vent his emotions out to Hunk. After the beat down your own stupid-ass heart had given you today, you didn’t have the energy to support the Drama Queen that was Lance. You unplugged your phone from the wall and then frowned, your lock screen totally blocked out with notifications.

 **11:40 - Gmail:** _Subject: ASPH1101 C-Block. Hey everyone Professor Shiro here. Sorry for cancelling class today but something came up. Lectures will resume tomorrow so don’t worry about today. See you tom…_

So that was that. You wondered what was going through his head when he typed up that e-mail. ‘Something came up’. Did he think about you in particular, or just the fact that an annoying girl hadn’t looked both ways before crossing the road and took up his precious time? You rolled your eyes and kept scrolling, almost angrily as if that would punish you for thinking about him again.

 **11:10 – VSUConnect:**  
 **Serah-Lee O.** : where tf is the prof lmao can we skip  
 **Barrett K.** : He isn’t even there?? LMAO good I’m fucking wasted free skip day :prayerhands:  
 **Nolan M.** : Yeah why isn’t the prof here he didn’t send an e-mail or anything.   
**Cole P.** : he’s too busy gettin gains @ the gym boiz leg day don’t fuckin quit :triumph: :flex: :onehundred:  
 **Adam W.** : lol  
 **Nathaniel L.** : oof fuck bitches get money who needs to teach when ur a male stripper :joy: :prayerhands:  
 **Laciann L.** : Is there a sub?  
 **Monte L.** : Don’t think so.  
 **Mallorie B.** : Y’ALL @everyone SEEN THE VSU SNAP STORY  
 **Oliver G.** : No I don’t have snapchat  
 **Vincent V.** : lmaoooo @nathanieleujinleung.82  
 **James R.** : fr isn’t that girl in our class  
 **Harvey S.** : Yeah wait a sec let me look in the classlist I swear I sat beside her once  
 **Michael F.** : Wait what’s happening?  
 **Harvey S.** : @namesurname.15  
 **Lennox J.** : Idk her.  
 **Audrey W.** : Omg I’m honestly so jealous look how he’s holding her!!!! :crying: :broken heart:  
 **Vanessa A.** : Is she ok. But is class cnaclled?  
 **Arthur C.** : @danielkhuenguyen.24 This is how you get a 4.1 in astrophysics lolol :joy:  
 **David R.** : @everyone If we report the prof for sexual harassment do we get an automatic A+?:joy: :joy:  
 **Jordan L.** : Prof Shiro is bae don’t do itttttt :joy:  
 **Maryssa E.** : Hmm wonder why class got cancelled when he’s with @namesurname.15. Shit don’t add up! :thinking:  
 **Kyou H.** : @maryssaeverman.31 Shut up Ryss there’s no tea here she’s hoeing the prof for marks :eyeroll: smart bitch  
 **Rhye K.** : @namesurname.15 so was the dick good orrrr :joy:

You didn’t even realize you’d been getting to your feet until somebody asked you what was wrong. You tore your eyes away from the screen and looked up blankly to both Lance and Hunk, who were staring at you oddly. Maybe you were in the middle of dissociating, but you felt oddly numb, unable to really grasp the hundreds of messages that were making fun of both you and Shiro. Weren’t you meant to be angry right now? Upset? 

“[Name]?” Lance asked, more gently. He might’ve fucked around, but he was still a good friend. He came to your side and sat you back down into your bed before plucking the phone out of your hands. “What’s going on?”

“They really think I’m fucking him for grades,” you whispered to yourself in disbelief, a smile spreading across your face. “They really think I’d do that. And they think he’s such a bad person that he’d do it, too.”

“Well… you _are_ eighteen, right?”

“That’s not the fucking point!” you snatched your phone right back and jammed your finger into the fingerprint sensor, determined to set things right. “They can’t just spread rumours like that however they fucking want!”

 **[Name] [S].** : @everyone ur all fucking stupid I’m not trying to screw a GPA out of professor shiro have some common sense you dickheaded monkeys  
 **Rosaline H.** : sounds like something a slut would say

“Fuck them,” you seethed, throwing your phone back to Lance. Fine; they could have whatever shitty opinion they wanted of you, but what really made you mad was them easily thinking that Shiro would do something like that. Couldn’t they tell that it was like Mother-fucking-Teresa had come down to bless a mortal? Shiro probably didn’t even step on ants, much less perform such unprofessional misconduct.

Spoiler alert: you weren’t entirely right.

“Hey, [Name]—” Lance began, but you ignored him.

“No, that’s it. I’m going back to bed. Fuck this shit.” You put one leg back under your cover before Lance showed your phone face back to you, an eyebrow raised with subtle concern.

“I think your dad’s calling.”

Your heart dropped.


	6. 6. Bruh.

Shiro wasn’t naturally a morning person. Actually, he—excuse the language—fucking _hated_ mornings. With a burning white-hot passion. People often found that surprising of him. After all, he was this ‘ultra-specimen of Jock-Nerd’, according to the ever-wise Matthew Holt (Doctor of Computer Science and Internet Memes). Shiro was a gym-rat and managed to be one of the few mortals able to crawl into AM lectures on time. Even when he had been in the corps, he’d managed to rouse himself at whatever god-awful time the C.O decided was the time to wake up. Shiro had the patience to sit through things he didn’t like to do. Still, he preferred nights.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that his childhood home in Tokyo was busy day-in and day-out anyways, regardless of time. Evenings after school had been precious to him, surrounded by friendships and the budding starts of heroes’ journeys. Back in the day, there was no such thing as tracking your kid through their phone. Only a curfew. Once you were free, you were _free_ , and your parents would have no idea why you came home grinning like that with sticks in your hair. The shroud of night that would blanket you while you wandered the city and blur those neon lights into a soft haze was endlessly comforting. After Tokyo there was LA. He had so many memories of sneaking out through the window so that he could take his little brother to see the fireworks. He had always been always caught, because (trying to) get the net off of your second-story window is messy business. Still, there was a sort of unspoken agreement that if fireworks go up, you have to go see them, no matter what. The red blooms of fire obscured the cosmos, but only for a little bit—and then the stars would twinkle on. They always do, even when you can’t see them. Nighttime was always when you could see the stars best. In Antarctica, with no light pollution or smog, it was almost like you could reach up and brush your thumb against the edge of the Milky Way.

And sure, the idea of a quiet morning was nice and all that—sip a coffee while the orange sun comes up in the quiet of chirping birds. Read the morning paper as your toast slowly burns behind you. Have the kids wrestle with mom to have their hair combed neatly and their tinny lunch boxes filled. The domestic All-American image of mornings was pretty romantic. But when the bugle of the default alarm starts blaring at 4 in the morning, you can’t help but become awash with _exhaustion_.

“Shit,” Shiro mumbled to himself as he knocked his phone onto the floor in an attempt to hit snooze. He always set back the time earlier than he had to, knowing he would never actually get out of bed on the first one. He had several alarms, too. Safety reasons. The four o’clock one went on and on, and soon the 4:05 would, and then the 4:10, and then the one titled “don’t be a fool, get your fAt a$$ to school!!!!!”. He couldn’t remember when he’d named it that. Maybe he’d been drunk. 

Eventually, he became too annoyed to tolerate the beeping any longer. This was after a half hour of lying in bed, doing nothing. His roommates in Antarctica had hated him since he was able to lie there and let his alarm go for so long. When you’re confined in a tiny Hab, you get a little too close and personal with your teammates. But again, Shiro just had a lot of patience. He fished his phone up from the floor by grabbing the charging cord and shut it up with his eyes closed. There was a dangerously blissful moment of silence where he could have fallen asleep again, but he knew he couldn’t—not today, at least—and groaned tiredly. He rolled out of his bed, slapping his hand against the wall clumsily for the switch. It blinded him just like it did every day, and he shuffled to the bathroom with his arms out like a clumsy mummy. 

It was an extremely cold morning and he shivered violently, already missing the warmth of his blankets. He tried to minimize his gas bill by living frugally. At least the discomfort would help him to wake up a bit more. He could form coherent thought now, and suddenly wondered what he’d woken up from.

He’d been dreaming about something which was in the middle of reaching its climax before his alarm had abruptly startled him awake. Though he couldn’t remember it anymore. Not a damn thing. It’d always been hard for him to hold onto dreams, and the only ones he did end up remembering were about things as trivial as buying milk at Whole Foods. These dreams were so realistic that he was often faced with severe disappointment when there was actually no milk in the fridge. Yet, as he pissed absent-mindedly, he couldn’t help but have a strong feeling that this dream had been something more vivid than usual. He couldn’t help but feel a lingering frustration. Something was meant to happen, but he just didn’t have enough time to see it through. 

Oh, well. He flushed that sentiment away and washed his hands clean.

He didn’t grow a lot of facial hair, but stubble did come by quickly, so he was already used to shaving every day. His father treated it like a ritual, always using some sort of special razor and cream. Shiro felt that he was a lot less high-maintenance. A couple of scrapes from a cheap, disposable razor and some water did the trick. He washed his face and brushed his hair back into place with some gel to comb down the weird cowlicks he’d acquired in the night. He tried not to dwell on the greys. Young at heart, they say. Then he spritzed some expensive-looking cologne down his front. It’d been a graduation gift from Sam, so Shiro had no idea what brand it was or if it even had a name at all. Shiro didn’t really bother to keep up with trends or names or anything like that. He dressed based off of whatever the associate said looked good, and it seemed to work out for him okay. Finally, he topped everything off with a healthy spray of deodorant. His contacts went in and finally, _‘then there was light’_ , and he could actually see. He checked himself out in the mirror blearily. His dark circles were worse than he imagined them to be. His hair was also getting a bit too long on the sides. His mother would definitely complain, but he just hadn’t had any time to get it maintained. Speaking of his mother and his father… Shiro felt his heart lurch sadly and he turned off the light. After standing in the darkness for a second, he went off to get changed, shaking his head. 

Normally, Shiro would’ve eaten, hit up the 24h gym sitting a block away from home, and taken a shower before getting himself ready for school. He liked having a predictable schedule to fall back on. It gave him some order. Unfortunately, he had to go pick up his car today, and it was going to take something like a million years to taxi himself to the dealership just to pick up that piece of junk. Then he’d have to drive all the way back across the city to get to class. It threw a wrench into everything. But he supposed he should at least feel lucky that the old thing hadn’t kicked the bucket yet. No more rides with Matt. Thank Christ. 

Shiro didn’t live in a fancy apartment or a nice suburban house like the Holts did. Shiro rented out some shitty bungalow off the corner of a sketchy community on the outskirts of the ghetto north-east. Property within city limits were expensive, and staying anywhere near campus was like a death sentence for somebody on a starting prof’s salary. Shiro probably could have applied to live in rez, but he would rather not re-live his college experience any more than he had to as a prof. It had been a good time for him, sure, but that was the past. It probably wouldn’t be a great image for your prof to frequent the exact same grocery store you did. Besides, he didn’t think he could appreciate the muffled bass of frat parties shaking the walls any longer. 

The taxi came quickly, which was a surprise. At this time of morning, it was almost like purgatory, and you couldn’t help but be suspicious of anybody else stupid enough to be around at this hour. “ _Why are you here?_ ” you’d ask, to which they’d narrow their own eyes at you and ask, “ _why are **you**_?”

Shiro grabbed his bag, stuffing it messily with his laptop and notes. He locked the front door behind him and got into the back of the taxi, stealing a glance up at the sky as he slid inside. Days were getting shorter with each one, but he could faintly make out the stars right before they began to fade away into the blue.

\---

ASPHY1101’s lecture was in A-Block today, aka ‘hell block’. Shiro couldn’t help but feel bad for the kids who had really thought they could handle 8 AM classes after doing it all throughout high school. They were sadly mistaken. They filed into the lecture room like zombies, taking seats before letting their heads fall down onto their desk. Shiro hid a smile to himself and turned back to the blackboard to continue writing up the equations. He _would’ve_ liked to use his neat PowerPoint that he probably spent too much time making, but of course, the projector systems were down. VSU’s IT was ‘working on it’, but Shiro highly doubted that claim. If he were truly desperate, he might’ve called Matt to come in and help work out the wiring. But Matt was probably asleep and wouldn’t be awake until a couple of minutes _after_ his own class had begun. Shiro didn’t really mind. The smooth feeling of chalk beneath his fingers; the sound of it softly hitting the board; being able to flourish out as you wrote… it was all kind of fun—and then he realized that probably cemented his ‘old man’ status. 

He looked down at his watch after marking down the last lambda after the Ricci curvature tensor. 7:42. Nobody had come forwards with any tutorial questions, but he didn’t blame anybody for that. It was too early for people to know what they didn’t know. Besides, he hoped that people had used yesterday’s class cancellation as a proper study hall block. They’d probably gone and taken a nap or partied, but he could at least have _some_ faith in his students. 

[Name] entered his head almost aggressively, giving him a painful jolt through the heart. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing okay. After all, once she’d been admitted into the clinic, he’d felt so awkward standing around that he felt the need to… well, run away. He hadn’t been that flustered or embarrassed before in a very long time.

Shiro knew that he was a pretty boy—he got a lot of attention for his looks and a _lot_ of uncalled for offers, too. A lot of them had made him blush unfairly. _The hot astrophysicist._ In a way, it was somewhat degrading, having his hard-earned degree take a back seat to his fortunate genetics. A lot of people thought he had to be married, or he had to be single, or he had to be at least thirty, or he had to be a model, or he had to be Korean-mixed, or this or that. But it couldn’t be helped. That was just what happens when you look at somebody and you don’t know them.

Still, being mistaken as his student’s boyfriend? He didn’t know if the doctor misjudged _his_ age, or [Name]’s. Did he look like a first year? Did she look like a post-grad? But what he really couldn’t stop thinking about was why the doctor immediately assumed the appointment had been for a pregnancy test. And, the worst thing was—Shiro didn’t even know what exactly he felt about it. It horrified him, yes. As it most definitely should to any dude that’s been mistaken to be somebody’s baby daddy when they haven’t so much as kissed! But then Shiro felt something tumbling in his gut. Disappointment? Excitement? Revulsion? Doubt?

Longing…?

“Hey, Shiro. Hey. Prof!”

“Yeah, what? Sorry.” Shiro shook his head and stopped rubbing his forehead, which was beginning to nurture a migraine. A student beamed in front of him—Shiro’s mind snapped to the name after recognizing the too-tight V-neck t-shirt. Right, Colton Sinclair. Shiro hadn’t even noticed Colton come up.

“Just wanted to say big thanks for those Judo tips. I remembered what you said about using your weight, and I totally threw this guy across the room like it was nothing. Wicked, man.”

Shiro had been a Judo champion back in high school. That had been put on the back burner ever since he’d gotten too busy with ‘Adulting’, but it was still a sport he harboured a fondness for. Colton had brought up wrestling sometime early in the semester, and Shiro hadn’t minded sharing a few of his experiences on the mat. In a way, he hoped that talking about things besides celestial physics might make his students a bit less afraid of him. He remembered what it was like to be terrorized by a prof in first year. Matt made fun of his wanting to be friends with his students so badly, but it was true. He just preferred treating students as friends than subordinates. 

Friends…

_“Boyfriend? Sorry. You’ll have to wait outside. If the visit is for a pregnancy test then you will get results after a consultation with—”_

“Bro, you good?” Colton asked, looking seriously concerned now. “You been like, spacing out. Hey, pun intended.”

“Sorry, it’s… been a rough morning. Congrats on the… uh… Judo thing.” Shiro knew he probably sounded as high as one of those pothead kids that smoked in the courtyard every day, but he couldn’t help it. Every time he thought he was finished, his thoughts gravitated right back into that incident, just like planets keep trying to escape the Sun—only to be whipped right back. His right arm began to ache, like it always did when he tried to subdue his feelings about something. The smile forced onto his face probably looked a bit off, but Colton already seemed to know something was up. 

“You, uh… I saw…” Colton’s brow furrowed, but then he bit his lip and shook his head as if thinking better of something. “Nevermind. Hey, there weren’t any notes or anything yesterday, right?”

“No. We’re just going to take up the lesson from where we left off before the quiz. I’ll go over that too, actually.”

“Fuck. About that damn quiz bro, _man_. Shit. You destroyed us. Like, what the hell was up with question 1?”

“What about it?” Shiro asked warily, feeling defensive, since he had actually written the test himself. 

“Question 1.” Colton held up his hand and began ticking off the fingers. “Part A. Part B. Part C. Part D. Shit was like the whole ass moth’fuckin’ Chinese alphabet or some shit. And then you had the nerve to say, _using your answers from question one_ … bruh!”

“It was a fair evaluation,” Shiro defended, albeit feebly, now that he was hearing it verbalized. He’d run the test himself and done fine, but he supposed he _did_ have like, nine years of formalized education over his students. Oops.

“You think we can do a re-write or replacement mark?” Colton asked suddenly. Shiro frowned.

“Well, the marks are already in, so…”

Shiro stopped himself suddenly. Hadn’t _[Name]_ asked something like that? And… right, he’d said _yes_ to her. Without hesitating. Why had he done that? He shouldn’t have done that. Term marks would be in soon—he should’ve just said ‘no’ to replacement marks and curved like every other prof would be doing at this point in the semester. Everybody knew when every quiz was scheduled in the syllabus. Maybe it had been a difficult exam, but it wasn’t as if he’d just blown a pop quiz on them or anything. He’d given out proper review notes, too, and that quiz was pretty much the same difficulty as the mid-term was going to be. There was absolutely no reason to justify a re-write. 

Colton gave him a weird look and Shiro shook his head exasperatedly, realizing that he’d just been standing there and staring intensely at the chalkboard wordlessly for a near minute.

“Let me think about it, Colton. I’ll let you all know by the end of class.”

“‘Kay. But you got any more Judo tips, hit me up.” Colton went and ‘swaggered’ off like the kids do these days. The class was looking a lot fuller now when Shiro turned to them, and it was nearing 8:05. His eyes drifted over their faces, sympathizing with the shared look of tiredness they all had. There were quite a few empty seats today, no surprise. Shiro wasn’t the type to harass anybody about skipping class unless it brought their marks too far down. He swept over everybody’s faces twice, looking for something that wasn’t there. [Name] was absent today.

It made sense. She’s taken a pretty nasty fall, and she might’ve even broken something. But did it really matter? She was just any other girl, right? No—any other _student_. He forced himself to turn around and look up at the chalkboard so that he wouldn’t keep staring at an empty chair. It was totally, perfectly normal for a student to miss his class. 

And yet, he felt like he missed _her_ , and he suddenly felt the need to ask Colton to Judo throw him out of the window.

\---

Shiro was halfway through the word ‘magnetohydrodynamics’ when the door suddenly opened. It normally wasn’t very loud, but somebody had accidentally moved the trash can over a bit too far, and the door slammed into it. The scraping metal and obnoxious _bang_ made everybody look over, including him. [Name] slid into the room and looked up wearily before dropping her head. She shuffled close to the wall, clearly trying to minimize her visibility despite the number of eyes on her. Shiro glanced at her face, but she was avoiding eye contact with everybody by staring at the ground. Something about her looked off. He realized what it was quickly.

A lot of people on college campuses cried and cried often. They always had a certain post-breakdown glow around them, and [Name] practically burnt with it. If it wasn’t anything that bad, Shiro would’ve felt comfortable looking away and moving on. But she looked like she had… cried herself _out_. Her eyes were visibly red and puffy, even from this distance, and the entire slump of her frame—obscured by a gigantic XL VSU hoodie and sweats—was depressing. Something very bad had happened to her.

The piece of chalk he’d been holding slipped out of his hands as he was busy staring, and he swore under his breath as it shattered to dust on the floor. He had completely forgotten that he was in the middle of a lesson. [Name]’s haggard appearance concerned him a lot, but he still had obligations to the hundred other people who were looking up from their laptops and notebooks concernedly. He made a quick mental reminder to look into it after the lesson and cleared his throat.

“Yeah. As I was saying. Magnetohydrodynamics is an important concept that _will_ be on your mid-term and final. The fields around…”

She probably wasn’t looking at him. She might’ve even been asleep. Shiro had to remind himself as people flipped pages in their workbooks—[Name] [Surname] is just another student. ‘[Name]’ is just another way to express a string of numbers in the school system. The feeling of eyes on him was not from [Name]. And, after January exams and the end of the fall semester, Shiro would never, ever see [Name] again. 

He realized it then. The feeling he had felt back there in the clinic was _what if_. That dream? It’d been a _what if_.

Shit. It scared him.


	7. 7. Cyberbullying SUX!1!

You didn’t know why you even bothered coming to class when you couldn’t even focus. Your knee bounced, and your head felt like it was entirely full of scratchy stuffing. Whatever Professor Shiro was saying flew over your head completely. You hadn’t actually meant to be late, but you’d spent too much time lying in your bed staring up at the ceiling. Your sense of urgency had also been skewed. You were too unhurried to move any faster than an inconveniently slow shuffle, so really, you probably shouldn’t have even come at all. 

Your head snapped up when you felt somebody prod you in the back. When you turned around, everybody around you had their heads bent over their textbook studiously, and one guy was playing Peggle on his phone. You gave them all a warily suspicious look but then turned back around, accidentally looking down to Professor Shiro. His eyes met yours for a millisecond before gliding away. He was pointing at a huge ass equation that spanned two blackboards, and it didn’t make a single lick of sense to you. Whatever happened to good old Pythagorean Theorem? You watched him lecture without really listening, even though it was probably assholish of you to not pay attention. You couldn’t help it. He was wearing a black checkered button up today, which was tight around his muscular frame, as usual. Dark grey pressed trousers paired well with the black-and-white shirt, and his shiny black loafers tied the whole monochromatic look together. An attractive watch sparkled on his wrist as he turned around to write a note down. His whole black-and-white aesthetic reminded you of the black-and-white night sky. Almost. 

Something poked you in the back again, more painfully. You turned around more quickly to try and catch a glimpse of whoever this person was, but you merely saw a girl holding her phone up at you. You’d never seen her before, but she began pointing insistently at her phone, and you figured she wanted you to check yours. You had half a mind to ignore her to her face and continue disassociating in peace, but decided to humour her, and dug your phone out of your bag.

 **9:33 – VSUConnect**  
 **Jennifer Q.** : whore’s in the house @namesurname.15 wyd late lmao  
 **Robert R.** : Don’t be such a bitch. Everybody knows you’re a slut.  
 **Arden C.** : Whatevvvs u know she getting dick after :tongue:  
 **Danielle B.** : Can we just focus on the lecture? leave her alone.  
 **Farah H.** : Yeah. Joke’s over folks it isn’t funny anymore  
 **James R.** : y’all wanna play pubg rn  
 **Colton S.** : lmao pubg is dead af bruh fortnite’s where it’s at :joy:  
 **Colton S.** : btw my mans shiro said he’d ‘think about’ a rewrite like BRUHH we all failed bcs of u :unamused::unamused:  
 **Alex N.** : @namesurname.15 tell him to let us do a re-write  
 **Reyna B.** : @namesurname.15 Please do us all a favour and do him a favour…  
 **Dacre T.** : @namesurname.15 ^  
 **Leigh M.** : @namesurname.15 ^

You bit down on your lip so hard that it began to bleed into your mouth. You wiped the taste of salt away with a closed fist and looked up, scanning the room to see if anybody else was on their phone. Nobody seemed to be, but your phone kept buzzing with notifications. _Fuck it out of him. Haven’t you already been doing that? You’re already getting extra cred so it’s not fair of you. Just ask him, he might say yes to you._

That was enough. You thought you’d already cried yourself dry, but the damned hot tears welled up in your eyes again, and you couldn’t fucking _take it_. Quietly, you shrugged your bag back onto your shoulder and darted down the stairs to the door. On your way out, you heard Professor Shiro trail off mid-sentence, like he had half a mind to stop you—but the door slammed shut behind you after that, and you refused to think about going back.

Once you managed to get outside the building you felt safe to cry again. It bubbled out of you like an eruption. You couldn’t see very well anymore and grabbed onto the outside of the wall, allowing yourself to slide down it like a loser in a 90s high school movie. At least those girls actually got the boy in the end. Or they had their happy ever after to the tune of preppy Hillary Duff. You? You had jack shit going for you. 

Your ugly crying was a loud enough mess as is, so you didn’t hear somebody walking up to you until they cleared their throat. Startled, you looked up, meeting the eyes of a dark-haired boy who somehow managed to look more uncomfortable than you did.

“Are you… okay?” he asked while cringing.

It was clear that he was only really talking to you because it’d be a social misdemeanour to leave a girl sobbing outside without at least checking to make sure she wasn’t psycho. You made to say ‘yes’ even though you weren’t really okay at all, but your throat felt swollen shut, and you could only manage to blubber uselessly. Way to make a first impression. The guy sighed exasperatedly, pushing an awkward hand back through his long hair.

“Okay. Great. Well, um, I’ll just be going, then…”

“My uncle’s dying,” you finally wheezed out. You could still hear your father’s stern voice in your head, clear as day. 

_Uncle Maes has terminal cancer. Don’t bother coming back home. He’ll be dead before you get here._

You’d seen enough Spider-Man origin stories to know where this dead uncle bit was going to go, but you didn’t think you’d end up with any spidey-senses. Just a fat load of depression and _guilt_.

“Shit,” the guy murmured. He sighed and then put out his hand, looking very reluctant. “Look, I’m sorry. But it’s raining, so you should… I dunno, go inside. Or go home.”

“I don’t want to go inside,” you whispered feebly, fully aware that you were being unfairly difficult to this stranger who was only trying to help you. But you couldn’t bear to be back in the building you were having a mental breakdown outside of. All the stares. Especially that of Professor Shiro…? No, you couldn’t bear it. 

You hadn’t even noticed the rain because of the surplus of water already running down your face. But now that this guy had mentioned it, it was really starting to come down. You shivered, realizing just how soaked you had already become. The cold wind seemed to seep past your flesh and chill you to the bone. 

“Well… okay, can I like… take you home?”

After a moment, you nodded silently. You didn’t figure anything bad would happen to you, even though he was a total stranger. Besides, if he decided to take you out to the woods and stab you, that was a win, too. You felt a bit bad for making him do this for you, but you were so tired that you couldn’t even afford to feel social anxiety. Just exhaustion. 

“Where do you live?”

You took his hand, feeling its warmth radiate through your palm. He was wearing gloves, and despite the feeling of wool, you felt comfort. He hauled you to your feet.

“Dorm E…”

“Okay. I’ll drive you there. Is that okay with you?”

You nodded again.

“What’s your name?” he asked once you let go of his hand, shuffling along beside him.

“[Name].”

His face softened once he looked away, and your gaze followed like sunflowers trace the sun.

“Keith.”

\---

“You know, maybe I should just drop out of school entirely. I’m not hot enough to be a stripper but I’m sure _somebody_ is willing to be my sugar daddy.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up as he killed the engine. It’d been a very short drive, but in those five minutes, the storm had worsened considerably. Rain was coming down in slaughtering, heavy sheets. It pounded on the roof and sides of Keith’s dinky Corolla like it was Mother Nature’s car wash. After hanging out in the warmth of Keith’s rickety car, you didn’t feel like hopping right back out into the cold. 

“Why…?” he asked, more out of courtesy since he was clearly waiting for you to unbuckle your seatbelt and get on the hell out. 

“I suck. At everything. I thought I was good at studying ‘n shit, but sike. Guess not. That was the only thing I had going for me, too. And like, my favourite uncle’s dying or dead and I never even got to say I love you. My parents hate me so much they don’t even want me to come home. What am I even paying for here, anyways? _Air_?” You heaved out a tired sigh, light-headed from your rant. “I’m sorry. I’m just… sick of it.”

“Look…” Keith inhaled deeply before setting his tone grimly. “I’m sure it’s hard. But missing school sucks. More than you think. It sounds like it’s all fun and games, but it’s not any easier. Just get past it and you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, well…” You exhaled and then looked over to him. He raised an eyebrow and you nodded, grateful. You wouldn’t be able to stand any more pity after the smothering Lance and Hunk had given you last night. Having somebody objective helped you realized that you _were_ being a little bitch. You finally unclipped your seat belt. “Thanks. For giving me a ride back to my dorm. That was really nice of you.”

Visible relief drained tension from his face. He was probably thinking _thank Christ, the crazy girl’s finally going to leave me alone._

“I’ll walk you inside,” he said abruptly, suddenly sounding a bit shy. “Just so I know you made it.”

Your heart swelled with pleasantly surprised affection. He didn’t seem like he was going to stab you at all! His standoffish attitude seemed to be just that. Attitude.

“You don’t have to,” you protested feebly, since you actually would like him to. After literally getting cyberbullied, you were keen to have a real friend—or at least some company—to lean on. He shook his head, already opening his car door.

“You’re limping!” he shouted, to be heard over the rain since you were still inside. “So I’ll walk you, okay?”

So he’d noticed? Well, it was pretty obvious since you were dragging yourself around like a bootleg pirate. You’d feel stupid if you said ‘thanks’ any more than you already had, so you just shut up and let him jog awkwardly alongside your crippled gait. You shielded your eyes of water with your hand as if it were sunny. Keith had thrown his red-and-white jacket up over the two of you to help act as an umbrella. Neither of you really said anything, but there wasn’t much else to say. You were already feeling a bit more okay with yourself. Not okay-okay, but Keith’s little speech had given you just enough gas to put yourself back into drive. After you got into bed and slept it off, you’d work on figuring shit out. The both of you were only a few yards away from the dorm’s automatic door when something made you stop.

“[Name]? _Keith_?”

You turned around and saw Professor Shiro, staring at you through the rain.


	8. 8. No, God! No! God! Please! No! No!! No!!! Noooo!!!

It was no good. It was no damn good. She wouldn’t get out of his _head_.

He managed to continue the lecture, but it was half-hearted, half of his mind stuck on [Name]. Shiro could only hope he was still making sense and that he wasn’t being too obvious about his distraction. But he couldn’t help it; he had a researcher’s inquisition, the _I have a right to know your secrets so give them to me_ trait. He didn’t know why she’d ran off or where she’d gone off to. It was in such a rush that he almost didn’t notice at all until she streaked past him, red in the face. Any normal prof might’ve assumed it was just a potty break; well, any normal prof probably wouldn’t _care_ so much. But he did.

This was becoming a serious problem.

“See you all in lab on Wednesday,” he dismissed absently, watching students pack up their stuff and file out. Normally he would’ve stuck around in the lecture hall—the next class didn’t get here until something like 12, so he used the space as his office. As a first-year professor on probation, he didn’t have the privilege of office space, no matter how distinguished of an alumnus he was. His grad picture was on the VSU Hall of Fame, but god forbid he have a desk in the faculty office. On a good day he might’ve taken his work files and laptop outside into one of the extensive courtyards, but the day had already been gloomy by the time he’d gotten here, and a single glance out the window made it look like the whole building had been dropped into the tempestuous Pacific. The ancient brick made the acoustics of howling wind all the more haunting. All he could think about was his impatience. These people had to get on the hell out of here so that he could go and track her down.

Was that too weird? _Track her down_ —it wasn’t as if he was trying to harass her or anything. He just wanted to know if she was okay. That was all. Just… somebody caring about somebody else. Humanity and all that fun stuff. But as he slung his shoulder bag on, grinding his heel into the ground as a couple of girls lingered behind to chat, he could only wonder if he was just saying that to make himself feel better first. 

After this, he would stop for good. He had to. So, game plan: he was just going to go see if she was okay and had a safe place to be, especially in this bad weather. He would check after the injury from yesterday, maybe refer her to one of the campus counsellors, and then he would drop it. No more [Name] [Surname]. Well, no more past a student. Not that she was already more than a student. Or that he wanted her to be or anything.

Fuck. He was such a goddamn mess.

Finally, the girls waltzed out and he followed after uncomfortably close. He shut the classroom door behind him and hustled off, keeping his head down so that he wouldn’t have to stop for pleasantries. Empty platitudes and perfunctory responses; that was all conversation became when you got older. It was boring drawl, the same shit, the same fake interest, over and over… it was stifling, really. It was so much easier when you were younger and you just didn’t care. His shoes clacked on the floor. There were less people here and when he looked up there was nobody. Finally, he slowed down.

In any case he didn’t know exactly where he was going or where he should even head off to first. The… washroom? Campus was huge. He would never find her by wandering aimlessly. Besides, he didn’t feel like it was a good idea to ask around. Wouldn’t that be weird? To have a scruffy prof swing by your friend group during your break, going _‘have you seen a girl, this tall, this hair, pretty…’_

He nearly tripped on his own shoe. _Pretty_. 

Well, he was a man first, and he had eyes (feeble as they were). He wasn’t… blind to the fact that she was an attractive young woman. But he’d never really thought about it as her defining feature. It was always ‘68.2% lab report’ or ‘Answered question 2a right’ or ‘Middle-bottom of the roster’. Never ‘the pretty one’. When… when had that happened? It felt like something pent up had just burst into his chest, leaking cold dread throughout his body. When had this happened to him?

He started slowing down even more. Maybe… he shouldn’t go after her after all. His heart was fidgeting in his ribcage with anxiety, and his right arm ached deep in the bone. It always did that during bad weather these days, but now he couldn’t help but think it was actually a warning sign. An omen of bad things to come.

Shiro sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Patience yields focus. He cleared his head slowly, trying to welcome rational thought back into his scattered head. He had a PM lecture at 4, which was far away enough to be a drag, but too close for him to be able to drive back home. He’d just find somewhere to set up and work and take his mind off of [Name]. He was sure she’d be all right. She was a big girl, wasn’t she? Uni, especially VSU, was a tough place, and it made perfect sense for people to have the occasional mental breakdown or two. Or few. People didn’t need to be babied at this age, especially not by him. That… already hadn’t gone well for him. 

He was just starting to see the East Gate side exit, having instinctively walked towards the next building where his class was. He might as well continue on. Maybe he could track Matt down during the other man’s prep and goad him out for sandwiches or something. Or a drink later. Something strong. He needed something like that… to hell with school nights. 

The rain was coming down badly now, and it seemed like there was hail mixing in. A crack of thunder rolled across the sky immediately after the white flash of lightning, making him shudder a bit. It was a very close storm. Wind howled, water rushed through the drainage, and—

He boggled. So much for a monster campus, because _ta-da_ , there she was. [Name]’s face flew past him through the door’s tiny mesh-filled window, brightened by a splash of stray lightning. It almost seemed like a joke. There she was, just like that? The Earth rumbled angrily right afterwards as if reprimanding him for what he was about to do, and of course he wondered if it was just a hallucination, and of course he knew he should just turn around and let it go, but no, but _no_ because now he had to go see and make sure—!

The sleet slammed him with full force as soon as he stepped foot outdoors, but he was used to the cold and merely tensed up to brace himself. This was nothing compared to the whistling winds in Antarctica, which were full of cutting blades of ice and absolutely deathly frigid air that sucked your breath away and broke your skin at the touch. Two figures were huddling together, taking shelter under a jacket, which hid their faces. They looked like one fuzzy, misshapen blob in the foggy mist that came up from the force of rain pounding concrete. 

“[Name]?” he called out, feeling absolutely insane for barking at a pair of people that could very well be strangers. To his relief they turned, and he immediately recognized her face peering up from under the jacket, confusion well-written on her features. But with movie scripted pathetic fallacy, another tendril of lightning eagerly raced across the sky, illuminating the person on the left. Shiro’s heart dropped like a cold stone, fast sinking.

“Keith?”

They stood together silently, she and him, arms wrapped around each other. And suddenly, with a painful jolt of lightning of his own, Shiro felt as if he should’ve just stayed in bed.

\---

“Shiro.” Keith was the one to speak up first, the muffled scorn in his voice still easily heard under the storm. His voice bit harshly. “I told you, I don’t want anything to do with you right now.”

Shiro caught a flash of disbelief go over [Name]’s face as she looked from him to Keith, but for once she was not the priority on his rapidly de-stabilizing mind.

“I don’t understand how you can continue to act like that!” Shiro spat, incensed. He was currently in a ton of pain, he was speedily spiralling into some dark hole with [Name] that he was too afraid to acknowledge, and now Keith was giving him _shit_? He unclenched his numb fingers and let icy water bead off of the tips. He took in a sharp breath to try and regain his composure. After all, there were eyes, and family drama does not make for an attractive cover image.

“Hey, just leave me the fuck alone, all right?!” Keith shot back, not skipping a single beat. Shiro’s heart stung, but the flames of anger washed over him, suddenly warming him despite the atrocious cold. He took a step forwards, his foot sinking into a puddle of water.

“You don’t get to say that to me,” Shiro practically growled, his ears roaring with rain and blood. “ _You_ don’t get to act all high and mighty, not after what you did to mom and dad—”

“That’s not my fucking problem anymore! They said it, didn’t I? Their words? I’m out, _nii-san_. So much for fucking _family_!”

“You idiot!” Shiro howled, his vision tinged with a red corona. “I did everything I could for you and you—!”

“Oh, so now we’re blaming me? We always blame me! ‘Cause I’m not really one of you, it’s all my fault, and it’ll always be my fault for _everything_!”

“Keith, I swear to God, you had better—”

“Better _what_. Better what, Shiro? Ask for forgiveness? Fat fucking luck. I’m better off on my own. I always have been.” He was shaking—or maybe Shiro was, and it was just making everything in his field of view tremble instead. Shiro had never been a violent person but suddenly it seemed that Keith deserved nothing more than a good hit to the fucking jaw. He took another step forwards. Keith stood stock still, shoulders squared.

“W-wait, wait! Okay, Professor Shiro, K-Keith. Let’s just uh… calm down here, okay?”

He blinked, completely having forgotten that somebody else was here. Keith seemed to react the same way, lowering his fists and glancing down to the girl he had dropped his sweater over. [Name] peeked out from under it with hints of fear and unease reflecting in her large eyes, shrinking back but standing her ground.

“[Name], stay out of this,” Shiro said stiffly, his tone austerely professional, as if he was merely lecturing a student on bad behaviour. 

“This isn’t any of your business,” Keith agreed, on his side for the first time in years. It felt like there was real fire spurting from the hatred in his hard, dark eyes. [Name] recoiled with a frightened cringe but didn’t back down. Instead she began to shuffle between them, blocking them from each other with her timid body. Keith leant to the side as if he was going to side-step her anyways, but thought better of it, and shoved his hands into his pockets instead.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think a fist fight is a little too, uh… far. Let’s just calm down, and um… talk about it?” She sounded very unsure of herself as a mediator between two large, able and angry men, but the sound of her voice put a stopper in Shiro’s anger and he deflated. He no longer had the energy to deal with Keith. It had never worked before, and it sure as hell didn’t seem like it’d work now. It was easy for him to look past her, being that much taller, and he merely gave a pitying stare down to Keith.

“I’ve had enough talking,” Keith muttered resentfully. He stole a quick glance to [Name], shaking his head back so that his black hair was slicked out of his face. “I’ll see you around.”

“W-wait, Keith—?”

He stormed off, jogging away to his car and getting into the driver’s seat without looking back. Tires screeched on wet asphalt and he sped off, looking as if he were a stroke of bad luck away from hydroplaning, but before long he was totally gone. Not even the sound of his engine revving remained.

“He didn’t take his jacket back…”

Shiro’s attention snapped back to [Name], who he had forgotten all about for the second time. She looked troubled, her fingers cherry red as they clutched onto the edge of the red and white jacket that had apparently been left behind. 

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Shiro apologized quickly, shame creeping up his neck in little tendrils. He’d lost his temper about private matters in front of a student. Hell, he’d be embarrassed if _anybody_ saw that. It was a little worse that it was [Name] [Surname]. He shook his head in disbelief at himself. “I’m really sorry.”

“No it’s… You don’t have to explain. But hey, you should probably come ins—” A bout of thunder cut her off, but Shiro had already heard enough to understand, and a cool flush of nervous adrenaline rushed through his body. 

“No,” he replied sharply, before he could even tempt himself into saying ‘yes’. “That’s fine, thanks.”

“You probably have a class later, right?!” They were shouting at each other now, looking like complete idiots in the rain. She squinted blearily in order to see him with sleet pelting her in the face. “You should have a shower or something so you don’t catch a cold!”

“I…” 

There were a million and one reasons as to why this wasn’t okay. He was an old man, hands down, cards up. He should not be accepting an invitation into a student’s house for a shower. He should not be accepting an invitation into a girl’s house. He should not be accepting an invitation into a much younger female student’s house, period. He was very well on his way into not accepting this invitation before she grabbed his arm.

“Come _on_!” she yelped, and dragged him forwards. At this rate, it would be rude to shake her off and run away. Pathetically, he followed, wondering if this storm was actually a _what the fuck are you doing?_ from God. Because really, what the _fuck_ was he doing? He would love to know.

\---

The admittedly short walk from the dorm entrance to her room was agonizing. He couldn’t help but think that everybody was watching him, judging him: what’s a male prof doing, going to a female student’s dorm? It was sketchy at best and downright sinful at worst. Luckily it seemed that there was nobody around (none that he could see, at least). But he still felt himself sweating despite the clamminess lingering on his skin.

“Here we are,” [Name] murmured abruptly, stopping in front of a door. She gave him an apologetic look over her shoulder as she swiped her key card. “I don’t have a roommate or anything so. Yeah.”

“Sure,” he replied idiotically. Would it have been better to say nothing? More? God, he’d never overthought a conversation with anybody like this before. He’d performed with more grace in front of _the_ legendary Carl Sagan back in high school than he did in front of his student. He shuffled inside behind her and finally let out a tiny breath as the door closed behind him. But the privacy didn’t exactly make him feel at peace yet.

As [Name] had said, one half of the room was entirely bare. That was weird, he thought. Dorms in VSU were always over capacity, so it was pretty much a huge violation to have a room to yourself or keep it a secret. But he didn’t inquire into it, figuring he didn’t need (or want) to know as a member of faculty.

Both sides of the room were identical with something like 9 feet between them. There were a pair of matching beds with drawers underneath, closets, and desks. He didn’t have to look to know that a door on the right led into the washroom, which had a bath/shower installed alongside a dingy toilet and sink. A tiny kitchenette was on the left with a two-burner stove and a too-loud fridge. More expensive rooms might have real doors or stairs or a living room space. But the flat baseline room was just this: home shit home. It filled him with warm nostalgia. His own room with Matt had looked just like this, too, all the way in Dorm G. There were some seriously good memories written into these walls.

He tried to keep his eyes off of [Name]’s stuff, but it was a bit difficult to when it was right there in front of him. Her desk was overflowing with pencils, cloths, tissues, papers, coloured notes, and other bits and bobbins in between. It was a mess only the maker knew how to navigate. Her bed was unmade and a whole stock of jackets, clothes, and—Christ, he saw a frilly looking bra—made their home on the back of her chair. He stared determinedly at the clock on the wall after that, willing his face to stay one damn colour.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” she stammered, standing in front of him as if her smaller figure could block everything out from behind her. He thought distantly of a transit of Venus. A tiny black speck across the sun. Venus, the god of love, beauty, sex—

Her cheeks were flushed in a patchwork sort of way and he that realized he was staring. Quickly, he looked away to his feet.

“…I, um, I guess I’m just lazy.” She finished her trail with a nervous laugh, and then she stumbled over her next words hastily. “Oh. And I don’t have any guy clothes that’d fit you, but I could lend you some towels while you dry off.”

“No, it’s fine.” It wasn’t the mess that bothered him. He’d lived with Matthew Holt for four years after all. It was this entire situation—it was the fact that he wasn’t actually that _bothered_. He kind of… _wanted_ to be here. He wanted to know what [Name] was like behind her student ID, what she did when she left his class, what ticks she had when she studied, who she really was—

Holy _fuck_ he was creepy. 

“Give me a sec.” She darted into the washroom, brushing past him. Her hair was sopping wet and it swung in thick strands, the colour looking darker with the heaviness of water. A faint smell followed her, so distant that it almost seemed like a vagrant memory than anything else. She came right back out with an armful of fluffy white towels and hesitantly offered them to him.

“Thanks,” he muttered instinctively, still too out of it to think of anything more sophisticated to say. He did his best to dry his face and towel off his hair, but he was completely soaked through from the rain. VSU campus was situated in a constantly humid climate, being so close to a water body (for launch and return purposes). Rainstorms and intense precipitation was frequent. It didn’t make him feel any better as he dripped onto her carpet.

“Um…” She seemed to be carefully focused on exactly what words to say, which made him feel a bit bad for her. He’d like her to feel open and honest or even casual around him, like Colton Sinclair was, but he was a hypocrite. He felt the same stifling awkwardness himself. After he’d had that tantrum at Keith in front of her, he thought that she might think less of him. He wasn’t an unreachable professor of great standing. He wasn’t a prodigy, or a genius of the field, or a decorated researcher. He hardly deserved to be respected or anything of the sort because he was just as human as the rest of them. Mortal.

“Do you want to shower?” she finally managed. His heart quickened. He glanced to the washroom and then promptly caught himself. 

“No, thank you. You go ahead. I should… get going myself.” He clenched the towel with his hand. Good. Progress. He was removing himself from the situation and salvaging it. Their relationship would end here. Now, he’d just leave, thank her for her kindness, and maybe go stand under a hand dryer—

“Let me at least make you some tea or something first,” she insisted hastily, speaking up before he could say anything else. “I never paid you back for taking me all the way to the clinic yesterday. You know, after that whole…” She waved her hands in the air and he felt his heart seize. The right thing to do would be to decline politely but firmly and leave, but his _dumb, stupid_ self said, without a beat of hesitation,

“Oh. Okay.”

He cursed himself out in his head. She didn’t need to pay him back for anything. After all, he had just done a nice thing anybody nice would do. There was no need to be rewarded for that. There was no need to want to accept a reward. That’d be an asshole move of him. 

Right?

“You can have a seat,” she urged, gesturing at the small wooden round table in the centre of the kitchenette. Caged in by the social circumstances he had brought down upon himself, he sat. He felt as if taking his bag off would make him feel obligated to stay for even longer, so he didn’t, cradling it in his lap while his knee jerked nervously. This was fine. He was just having some tea with his student. No different than if he’d just passed by her in the cafeteria or a Starbucks or something. They could just talk about class material like it was tutorial. He was just taking a nice favour because of the rain. This was fine.

Oh, he was _so_ not fine. 

He glanced up and saw her back turned as she wrestled with a plastic kettle, two mismatched mugs laid out before her. He took the opportunity and withdrew his phone from his pocket under the table. The screen was wet and streaks of water made the rainbows of the LED screen come out dizzyingly, but the stupid thing still worked, lighting up when he pressed on the home button. Immediately he sent an SOS text out to Matt.

 **You:** Hey man. Can we talk sometime ASAP? Need to get something off my chest like now

He didn’t expect to get anything back any time soon. Matt was a terrible texter, despite being on his phone 24/7. To his surprise his phone buzzed in his hand almost immediately. 

**yUnG sLim ThiCc Mat XD:** ye bro u got prep rn right 

When had Matt put that contact name in? 5 years ago? In any case, Shiro didn’t care enough to change it. It made it that much easier to identify that Matt wasn’t one of his professional contacts.

 **You:** Yeah. Your office in ten?  
 **yUnG sLim ThiCc Mat XD:** kk want me to bring alcohol??? we just got some of that ruski shit that fucks u up  
 **You:** No I’ve got class next I’m not going to drink at 11 in the morning.  
 **yUnG sLim ThiCc Mat XD:** ur living da low life shittro ://

Now he had plans to attend that would uproot him from here. Again, progress. Progress, progress, progress… His eyes slipped low to [Name]’s back, and then a bit further, and then he exhaled like he’d been punched in the gut. 

Why was it that he couldn’t function normally? Every single thing he did, he felt like he had to stop himself. Prevent himself from moving any further. Moving further into _what_ , though? What the hell was he so scared of here?

“Here you go. I hope Costco green tea is okay…”

The familiar sound of a mug hitting a table was soft and he glanced up. [Name] gave him a shy smile back and then sat, in the seat across from him, gently hovering her hands close to her own white VSU mug to warm them up. 

“Thanks, [Name].” He forced himself to use her first name, like it might make everything heavy in his chest go away if he broke one of the barriers he was putting up. But it didn’t. His heart started thudding more quickly in his chest after the syllables rolled off his tongue, like they were more powerful now that they were in the air. Real. 

“Yeah, no problem.” She paused for a moment and then raised her gaze. “Um, Profess—I mean. Shiro.”

“Yes?” he managed, trying to play it cool as he accidentally burnt his tongue on the scalding water. He looked up to her and saw her fiddling with the teabag’s string absent-mindedly, her long eyelashes casting shadows across her cheek in the dorm’s cheap off-white lighting.

“Are you and Keith... brothers or something?”

He should’ve expected this to come up. With a sharp stab he wondered how she even knew Keith. They certainly looked friendly. He hadn’t known that they knew each other, and the sight of them together like that, wound together under a coat in the rain… 

He forced himself to blow on his tea and take a hesitant sip to avert his gaze. That was not his business. But he couldn’t help being tense whenever it came to Keith. It felt like there was weight on his shoulders being unshackled, being brought back to life through reminder. He hadn’t really mentioned this part of his life to anybody before. Matt, sometimes, but Matt never really asked because he never really knew, so Shiro never said anything on it. Still, it’d always been at the back of his brain, lurking, never gone, but never really forwards. Until he had seen Keith again.

“He’s my adoptive little brother.” He let out a long sigh with the admission, feeling as if he were revealing something very, very personal, even though it really wasn’t. Keith didn’t bear the Shirogane family name, but he might as well have. Shiro had practically raised Keith ever since they’d taken him in. Had Keith been nine, then? Ten, twelve? It’d been so long. He didn’t think he’d actually introduced Keith as his brother since everything had fallen apart. Twiddling with the paper attached to the string, he nodded a bit tiredly. “Yeah.”

“And… sorry, I don’t mean to pry.” She twirled the tea bag string around her finger and shook her head. “It just seemed like there was something serious between you two.”

“No, it’s all right. You can ask.” He sighed, suddenly exhausted by the thought. He mimicked her and tugged at his own string, watching the teabag jitter in the green water. His eyes felt like they were fogging over as he remembered back, something he hadn’t done in a while. “There was a huge falling out. He got kicked out of high school because of behavioural problems, and my parents over-reacted, and then he over-reacted… in hindsight it could’ve been totally avoided. I should’ve done more for him back then. I knew he was going through a lot by himself. But I was so busy with school and work that I couldn’t… I didn’t…” He exhaled shakily. “Well. It’s a bit too late for that now.”

“Oh,” she replied, in a gentle voice that made him feel like it was okay to keep talking. She was biting her lip, chewing on it thoughtfully. “I’m sorry. That must be hard on you.”

“I really tried to fix things, but… I mean, we aren’t blood, but I guess stubbornness runs in the family.” He laughed, a bit bitterly, and blew on the surface of his tea to watch it ripple. The tea bag sank to the bottom. “Oh well. I was so happy to hear he got back into school, but he didn’t want to talk to me. Even after I got back…” 

After Antarctica, Shiro had really hit a vein of animalistic desperation. After all, he’d just scraped his way out of death’s clutches, and he hadn’t yet made amends with Keith. His parents were wordless, but he thought that maybe, just maybe he could have a breakthrough with Keith. An apology, a swift return to the old days…

_“So much for family.”_

“I’m so sorry,” [Name] began, clearly looking guilty that the mood was down. “I shouldn’t have brought it up—”

“No, it’s… not your fault. There’s nothing we can do, I guess.” He cleared his throat, which was growing strained with emotion, and gave her a smile to reassure her. She still looked troubled. He really shouldn’t have dumped his emotional baggage on her like that, but it was so irresistibly good to have somebody listen to him for once. Somebody that didn’t already know you. It had been so quiet there… 

“You’re okay?” he blurted out, suddenly desperate to have things end on a more positive note that didn’t involve his wallowing. “After yesterday?”

“What? Oh! Oh, y-yes. Just a little limp I think. I’ll sleep it off. It’s okay.” Flustered, she straightened up, a strand of hair by her chin unsticking itself. “Thanks.”

“And how about today?” he asked, finally remembering the reason he had gotten into this whole mess. He softened his voice. “You left class early.”

“Oh. Right.” She reached up with a hand and began to comb the ends of her hair out, her eyes flicking to his and then away. “I’m, uh, sorry about that. But actually… it’s family problems too.” She gave a small, embittered laugh and stopped moving her hands. The dark expression clouding her face suddenly roused Shiro’s concern. “My um, uncle. He’s dying. Maybe dead by now. But my dad, and I guess my mom too… they hate me so much they didn’t even want me to come home. I mean, I guess I was bad, but I never thought… I didn’t think…”

With her shaky inhale, Shiro’s phone suddenly rung.

_“WITH THE TASTE OF YOUR LIPS I’M ON A RIIIIIIIIDE—!”_

“Oh my god,” Shiro blanched, immediately scrambling for his phone. He was shaking so badly he nearly dropped it onto the floor. “I am so sorry. I am—that must be Matt. He’s insane.”

When had Matt broken into Shiro’s phone to change the ringtone? God, why was that asshole such a nuisance at all the wrong times?! Shiro managed to hit the power button and muted the god-awfully loud rendition of Toxic by Britney Spears. It forced him to look at the time and he realized why Matt had called—he was late by a near half hour. He hadn’t even realized how long he’d been talking to [Name] for.

“I-I need to go. I’m sorry, about your uncle, and—” He was frazzled, too overcome by nerves to think straight. He saw her shake her head, already getting up to her own feet.

“No, it’s all right. I shouldn’t have kept you here for so long anyways.”

“Thank you. For the towel. And tea.”

“Sure, no problem. Um, d-do you want an umbrella, or…?”

They scrambled around each other with the same fervidness a couple caught red-handed in bed might. The thought made him freeze and he finally forced himself to take a deep breath to calm himself down. Patience. Yields. Focus.

“[Name],” he said firmly, focusing himself. He opened his eyes and looked down at her seriously. “If you want to talk and be honest… I think sometimes having somebody listen helps.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just… it’s not like I… I just don’t want to be a bother or anything.” She seemed to be slowing down too, her arms crossing themselves around her chest as she looked away guiltily. 

“You aren’t. Not to me, I promise. If you don’t have anybody else… um, here—I’ll give you my private number. Just text me. Actually, why don’t you text me tonight?”

So much for that _don’t get too involved_ bullshit, Shiro.

“Wh-what?” she stammered. Clearly, she was bewildered by his suddenly frantic forwardness, but he was actually, for once, adamant about this. People needed to talk. People need to be heard; know that they’re loved. The look of Keith’s scowl razed him like a tear across his heart and he put his hand out for her phone.

“I swear I won’t be weird or anything,” he reassured while she hesitantly placed the phone in his hand. “I’m here for you. Think of it as an apology for me racing out of here so rudely.”

“I-It’s nothing,” she replied, dazed, watching him with incredulous eyes as he typed his number in. He saved it under ‘Shiro’, having half a mind to tack on the Professor, but ultimately deciding against it.

“Tonight. Text me, but only if you want.” He handed it back and when she took it, her index finger just barely brushed his own.

“O-Okay, sure. I will.”

“I’ll see you around,” he said, and then quickly, he left. The door shut behind him with a heavy click and he exhaled sharply, his legs feeling so weak that he nearly stumbled to the floor. He grabbed onto the wall and sucked in a sharp breath. It was clear. It was hopelessly clear that it was…

A crush. It was a crush. It was a head over heels, stupid, _she loves me she loves me not_ daisy chain crush. It was a sticky, warm perfume behind the ear, fill-your-heart-up-with-thoughts-of-her, _crush_.

Oh, God, no.

**Author's Note:**

> read this fic elsewhere: https://goo.gl/NtBPge


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